


The Day We Became More Than Children's Fantasies

by sharkgriffin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Alternate Universe-Witch, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Homophobic Language, Mild Gore, Mild Language, Partner Betrayal, Torture, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-10 00:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3269843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkgriffin/pseuds/sharkgriffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a modern world where being born with magic is a crime, Anna is locked in one of the many witch asylums that dot the world. After almost escaping for the third time, she is rescued by another witch named Lilith and taken to safety. As a student at her hidden school, she meets shapeshifter Meg, pyrokinetic Kali, the claimed clairvoyant Tessa, and the seemingly powerless and often rude, Ruby. But they are under threat and Anna soon realizes that discovering the truth about Ruby is the only way to save them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Femslash February

Anna ran. Down the street, turning corners, never looking back, like her life depended on it. Because, let's face it, her free life did. She felt a rush as the wind swept through her hair though the broken chain on her ankle, cracking itself against the pavement, and her bare feet, which were bruised and swollen and aching from all the little sharp stones they had run over, were a burdening reminder of the last six months. But maybe, just maybe, this time, she could make it.

Her exhiliration did not last long, however. She sensed the glowing life force behind her before it even reached her, grabbed her by the arm. It was like one of those dreams she used to have as a kid, those neverending ones where she was running from various incarnations of her mind like ugly kidnappers and enormous wild dogs, twice the size of anything fro the real world. But now, this was her life.

In her cell, she was the only one to have escaped at least once. In fact, this was their third time. She knew the jailers were taking extra precautions towards her. She had heard them discussing her outside the room sometimes, 'rebellious little one, slippery fish.' This had all resulted in more guards, more locks on the door, more chains twisted around her bony legs. But nothing could hold her back.

At first, she used to wonder why they were so bothered about letting her go. She was just one slave girl after all. But soon, it came to her. If even one of them got out, it would be a disaster. If she slipped up, imagine what would happen. The whole world would know, she would be filmed, put on YouTube and Twitter, all over the internet, headlines in the newspaper.

He bundled her up over his burly shoulder. He must have been almost a whole foot taller than her and weigh about three times as much. He was young and his hair long, but none of this reflected on the brutality he carried her back to the red brick building. At the time, it had seemed like she had run miles, but now it came over her that it would only have been about three streets.

She guessed she was never going to get home, never see her parents again. She supposed that was fine, they were scared of her. It had not really been her fault, she had no idea it was going to happen. But seeing the dead turkey lying on the kitchen counter, headless, ready to be drenched in gravy and sliced up even more and in that moment, it had represented every single person who had died at Thanksgiving for the pleasure of the pilgrims, that warped story they had always been told in Elementary school, not just the turkeys, but the Native Americans as well.

They had been the ones who called for her to be taken away, they had no idea where she was now and she didn't know what had happened to them, either. Perhaps they had moved away for a new start, to a nice, new house, ten states away from anything to do with her.

She was so busy kicking, screaming, hoping some casual passerby would hear her, figure out what is going on and come to her rescue. But little knowledge had been leaked about her kind into the normal world, just enough that people know to turn in anyone they knew who could possibly be one of them. And most, with the little knowledge they do have, fear them.

It took a few seconds for her to realize he had stopped, but when she did, the words freeze in her throat. She couldn't see from the same angle as her kidnapper could, she was being carried in a way that she could only see what was behind them. She tried to turn her head, but she was still locked firmly in his grip. But that didn't stop her knowing that someone was standing before him. They were small, at least smaller than the man, but probably larger than her, she could tell by their energy signature. This helped her suspect it was a woman. Perhaps it was some brave witness, trying to stand up to him, make him let her go. Not many people liked to come near this area anymore, which is why the majority of houses were empty, but she happened to know that about four of them in a five mile radius from the prison were still populated. Maybe this woman lived in one of them.

The woman spoke, but she did not quite hear, her own harsh breathing and the rush of blood through her ears was too loud. But the man replied.

"What?"

"I said, put down the girl." This time, Anna heard and yes, it definitely was a woman, cool and confident, not at all put off by the long haired man's size and demeanor.

"No," he answered and he obviously thought it was funny, being bossed around by someone so much smaller and weaker than him. And Anna had to hand it to him, she would find it funny too, if she were not in her current situation.

"I'm warning you, I'm giving you till the count of three before we start playing it the hard way. One..."

Anna had grown rigid, struggling to see what is happening.

"Two...three, now put her down."

Anna suddenly found herself lying on cold pavement, her palms pressed into the concrete.

"Now listen to me, you are going to walk away. Walk away in the opposite direction until you can walk no further. Your name is no longer Sam Winchester. You are called Lucas Bennet and your lifelong ambition is to become a ballerina."

What was going on? Who was this woman? Was she simply insane? Or was she like her? They had always been told in the asylum that their kind never lived past the age of twenty five but she was well into her thirties.

She felt a hand in hers as she was hauled to her feet. She now saw the woman for the first time in the flesh instead of as just an orange shape in the back of her head. She was blonde, her hair in curled locks that roll out onto her shoulders. She was actually about the same size as Anna but seeming taller with very tight black leggings and a lace shirt that was white. She had a necklace on, Anna could see the chain boldly draped over her throat, though the charm hanging from it was obscured by the fabric of her clothes.

Anna looked over her shoulder and was surprised to actually see that the man, Sam, was walking into the distance, venturing into the forest.

"Anna, are you alright?"

"Are you like me?" was all Anna could muster and then realized she was being rude, deflecting her. Then she said "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Really, I wouldn't say I were fine if I had been locked up in a prison like that for six precious months of my life. Life should be spent doing something worthwhile, not scratching your initials into a stone wall. And to answer your question, yes, I am like you. I'm a witch, too."

Anna gasped. She had never actually heard anyone use the word, it was forbidden. You could be arrested nowadays for using it and anything featuring witches, including children's books were confiscated by the government. Instead, she had been dismissed as evil, as an abomination, along with the three hundred and eight other girls encased in that building.

"I've come to rescue you, Anna, take you to a place where you'll be safe."

* * *

 

The mansion seemed too easy to spot which was what made it so ingenious. No one was going to suspect an enormous, expensive house that stood out from the little suburban cottages, that dotted the road, that this was going to be a witch hideout.

Just five seconds earlier, they had been standing outside the prison, the asylum, whatever you chose to call it, and now they were here. Anna opened her mouth to ask how, how they travelled so fast from one destination to another so fast, but it was obvious, wasn't it?

"You have two powers?" Anna asked.

"Multiple ones actually. Each of us is born with multiple abilities. Each of us, including you. The first to emerge is the primary gift, it appears around the age of sixteen. But soon, you will uncover many more, though some witches share abilities, each is unique to the witch, as you will see. I will tell you more once we're inside. Come."

Anna did not move and the blonde woman smiled.

"I know what you're thinking. I could just be another kidnapper, taking you to another prison. But I'm not. It's hard to persuade things like this. For most people, but not me. Anna, you will come inside with me, this instant."

Her sentence should have sounded normal, demanding, but it resounded in Anna's ears like an angel's song and there was nothing Anna could do to resist herself feeling happy. The closer she was smaller the distance between her and the woman, the safer she would feel and that was all she knew.

There was a lock on the door, but she simply ignored it, closing her eyes and taking a deep sigh at which point it swung open with a creak.

"The door recognizes me and someday it will know you, too."

This would normally sound ridiculous to anyone but not to Anna, Anna who could currently believe anything, Anna who had been living a nightmare and now was sure this was just some amazing dream and she was still on the cold floor of her cell. But she put that idea away for now. Time to indulge into this delusion further.

Girls were sitting on the staircase, a towering spiral that rose to the next floor. Everything around was marble from the floor to the beautiful and elegant statues that lined the path of entry and resembled great cats. A grand, crystal chandelier hung from a flower carving on the ceiling and Anna wondered just how a race of females who needed to stay in hiding could still manage to afford all of this.

The girls stood as she arrived, they had been previously giggling together and all donned black and  with necklaces with what could have been mistaken for occult symbols. The tallest girl was leaning on the bannister to the staircase. She was pretty, that was for sure, they all were in fact. Her hair was curly brown and her nose just slightly oversized and her outfit was lacy and black, like something out of a Steampunk Victorian cartoon. In front of her was a girl wearing a much more contrasting black leather jacket and a shawl over the top with choppy black hair and the final girl stood off to the side, with a round face and silvery black eye make up. Her choice of clothing was a simple, black crop top and a high waisted skirt. And finally, there was an extraordinarily pretty girl, also in a leather jacket and jeans and boots with heels, low but still there. She had a scowl of her face which almost ripped that perfect image in two.

 It was very cliché, Anna thought, the fact that they were wearing black. Each of them must have been in between the ages of sixteen and twenty, like her. It was strange, she had been expecting more of them. But then, the majority of witches were encased in the asylums.

"Oh, Lilith, see you brought us a new recruit," said the girl who still glared, specifically at Anna herself. Anna got the feeling she was not standing as an act of manners, but more because she was feeling obligated to do so since her friends were. Her tone of voice had seemed mean and teasing though not much had been said.

"Girls, this is Anna. As Ruby put so kindly for us, she is our newest _recruit."_

"She's not a recruit," the short haired girl then answered. "You don't want us to start an army. She's a student like all of us."

"It's a thing called sarcasm," replied the mean girl. "But you wouldn't get it, dumbass."

"I don't think you're making the best impression on Anna, either of you," said the woman who must be called Lilith with that commanding voice of hers, forcing Ruby to slump back down again.

"No, it's fine, better than what I had before." Anna shrugged as she spoke.

"I think it's time we moved this conversation. I'm guessing you're hungry, Anna. They don't bring much food in a prison?"

All of the other girls gave different signs of surprise. The short-haired girl took a good few steps backwards and almost tripped, the girl with the big nose's eyes and mouth both seemed to double in size as they opened wide. However, Ruby hardly showed any shock and her eyes rolled. Anna decided she didn't like her much at all.

"I suppose some food would be nice," she said, ignoring Ruby who now appeared to be doing an impression of her which the big nosed girl was struggling to hold back giggles of. She was completely famished but she didn't want to be rude, at least she had kept some manners after eating off the floor for so many months.

Lilith fixed them all up with mugs of warm tea and laid out a tray of sweet treats which Anna selected a slice of squashed chocolate cake.

"So, Sirius Black, what did you do to end up in Azkaban?" the girl wearing the crop top, who had been introduced as Meg, said all innocently.

"What?"

"She's referencing Harry Potter," said the girl with the leather jacket.

"No, I know, I just-"

"Do you want us to simplify it down for you? How did you get put into one of the asylums?" It was Ruby, who spoke this time, and Anna did not like the way her eyes bore into her like deep, black holes. She averted her eyes.

"I, er-"

"Anna has...a very special ability," Lilith answered for her. "She can bring things back from the dead. At the moment, it appears to be just animals and plants but in future, it's possible she might be able to do more."

"Like making armies of corpses," leather jacket girl said and Anna gasped. That had been what she was just about to say.

"Tessa's psychic," Lilith explained to her. "It's quite a pain actually. She reads your thoughts without really meaning to. Keep your secrets in your heart, not your head."

"Yeah, and I can also talk to the dead. I'm a clairvoyant," Tessa continued.

"No you're not." It was Ruby again.

"Then how do I know what your uncle bought for your fifth birthday?"

"'Cause you're psychic, that's why."

"I can only read the thoughts you're thinking at that exact moment. And I happen to know that you were thinking about the french fries Cook made for lunch at that exact moment."

"Anna, what did you do to get yourself noticed in the first place?" the final, unnamed girl asked, cutting the other two off.

"I-I raised our Thanksgiving turkey from the dead. Right when my mom was about to cook it."

All three of the students began to cackle.

"Did it run around the kitchen?" Meg queried, almost choking on a cookie she was eating. "How scared was your mom?"

"She was pretty startled. And then horrified. She went and called the service straight away." Anna hung her head now, remembering how her own family had backed away from her, as she was sedated, and then waking up, completely powerless, in a small brick room, with twenty or so other girls and young women.

"Don't worry, everyone else here has experienced this. Kali came from an asylum, too, whereas Tessa's parents brought her straight here."

"What can you do?" Anna asked them, looking from one to another.

"I shoot fire from my hands," Kali said. "Like a dragon. I could burn this house down if I wanted to." She pressed her two palms together and Anna saw them glow and sparks begin to rise from them. When she took them apart, a ball of flame was resting in her left hand and yet, not burning her skin at all. Another flash, and it was gone.

"Meg's the only one we're _sure_ has multiple abilities," said Lilith. This statement was obviously directed at Tessa. Anna did not see why no one believed her about being clairvoyant. "She can-"

"Lilith, don't go telling everyone about my kryptonite," Meg hissed. "What if new girl here secretly wants to attack me? Then she'll know what to be expecting from me."

"I can assure you, I'm not going to attack you, Meg."

"Wow, new girl, were you in an asylum or finishing school?" Ruby asked her and all of them turned to look at her. She had her arms folded and her upper body seemed to be twisted away from the table, like she was repelled from them all.

"She's a shape shifter," said Tessa, really quickly.

"Really?"

"Yeah, and she can walk on walls and ceilings," Kali added.

"I think that's enough, girls," Lilith said and began to clear away plates, indicating for Anna to take her last, mouthwatering bite of her chocolate cake. "Don't you have some books to be reading, I have to have a private talk with Anna, now."

Obediently, Kali and Tessa got up and left and Ruby followed behind them, turning her head to look back. She smiled, slyly before vanishing from sight. But Meg stayed behind.

"Is it true?" Anna asked when she was sure Ruby was completely out of earshot. "That you can shapeshift?"

"Yeah, guess I might as well share that with you now I know what you can do," Meg said and leaned backwards in her chair, lazily.

"I'm afraid it is." She knows not to use it though, not unless it's an emergency though I suspect she sneaks out to parties in disguise, sometimes."

"Lilith, I cannot believe you would think that I would-" She stopped mid sentence as Lilith gave her a knowing smile.

"What's wrong with her? Ruby, why's she got to be rude to everyone?"

"I know she can be obstinate sometimes."

 And obnoxious, bossy, tactless, and a little bit of a bitch," Meg continued for her and Anna chuckled. "But she can grow on you. Most of the time, she means well. I think that's the way she's used to things. She's nearly eighteen, second oldest after me and arrived about a year after me. I've been here since I was fourteen, see."

"Why?"

"Her father had magical blood. It's quite a rarity. One in a hundred girls is a full blooded witch. One in a hundred thousand boys has any magical blood and even those with the most magical blood have nowhere near as much power as us. This means her dad knew she was going to be like that and if he knew than the service was gonna know, too, so he thought the safer option would be for her to come here."

"Yeah, and a hell of a lot of good that did for me," Meg said.

"Well, I miss my family, too," Anna said in what she tied to make a sympathetic voice. "And they got rid of me because they were scared of me."

" What I can tell you is that my girls here treat this as a school where they can learn how to harness their powers. I see this as a safe haven. No one can hurt you here, other than yourself, you are out of harm's way. But the thing is, no one knows what happened to Ruby. She turned up here one night, when all of us were sleeping. She was very young and her face was bruised, her hair was tangled, I couldn't refuse her a room. But she never spoke of what happened to her.

"What are her abilities?"

"We don't know. She hasn't shown us any so far?"

"She hasn't shown any so far? Then how do you know she's really a witch? And how do you know she's not a spy. I mean, couldn't you have questioned her? You can make anyone say anything they want, can't you?"

Lilith waved a hand. "My hypnosis does not work on other witches, only humans with no magic. I could ask Ruby any question and not be certain she was telling the truth. But she has sworn to me she is a witch and she can make potions, something which only someone of pure blooded witch abilities could do. She is a witch and I know that."

A thought occurred to Anna then. "Why did you choose me to rescue? There are nearly three hundred girls in that asylum, what makes me more special than them?"

Lilith took a deep sigh. Anna couldn't see her face as she faced her with her back and placed all their plates and cups in the sink.

"I've never been in an asylum. I'm like Meg, always protected from a time before my powers emerged. But that doesn't mean I don't know what it's like there. You've seen how few of us there are, how many hunters there are there. To get  girls out of there, I have to count on them doing some of the work."

"So you mean, you knew I was gonna escape?"

Lilith picked up a pile of paper, lifting the first sheet up. "Eighth of May, a girl with red hair was seen running from the asylum, made her way down the entire street before being grabbed by one of the hunters." She lowered the paper and met Anna's eye. "You've seen my ability in action, I can get any information I like just be asking. People do whatever I say, provided they're not focusing. It only works on one person at a time, expalining why I can't just tell all the hunters to take a small vacation and set all of you free. Silver affects witches, badly. It drains their power, their strength, they can't use their abilities while in contact with it. But you could resist it. You gained a little power, enough to get you out of there after hard work. But the point is that your gift brings life where there is no life. If I am correct, you can sense life, life forces, and lack of life too. And that was exactly what you did. You gave yourself enough life that your determination to get out of there remained. And I was waiting here for you. Including you, we have five witches here. But one day, we will have more."

She suddenly seemed desperate to get Anna out of there, she told her to go to her room, gave her directions, told her to read some books on witchcraft, ushered her away.

Anna began to make her way up the stairs and passed a doorway. Kali was sitting by the window, holding a cigarette and lighting it with her hand. She failed to notice the other girl and Anna moved on. Ruby was sitting on her bed in the next room which took Anna aback a little. She, however, did notice the redhead in the doorway and put her middle finger up at her.

Anna ended up in her own room. It was all very grand. There were three beds but of course, hers was the only one that would be used. There was a crystal chandelier in here too, luckily not hanging over her bed but just an empty space on the floor. She followed Lilith's advice, took a book and began to read. But her mind only seemed to trace the words, not taking any of it in. She could only see her cell, it seemed to flash before her eyes, the marble floor replaced with a stone floor, the wide windows replaced with no window at all. And all the other girls, tired, slumped against the wall, their breathing the only sign they weren't corpses, they were here too.

She was with her own kind, she was home, but not her real home. And she would never return to her real home again.


	2. Chapter 2

On her second day, Lilith decided it was time for them all to to go out into the garden for a class.

Anna awoke with the others in a soft bed and that was all she needed to remind herself that this wasn't just some wonderfully pleasant dream, that she was in this beautiful mansion, a place among other witches where for once, she wasn't abused and forced into slave labor. Because that had been what she was doing, hadn't it?

She had read until late the night before, shutting out the energy signatures beaming brightly at her from six different spots in the house (one of those being from the cook they had whom she had only seen a couple of times as they slammed doors in her faces with grim expressions. She tried to act the role of the silver, now it wasn't there anymore, and deactivate her own powers. Unfortunately, this was not as easy as it sounded.

She read over some spells, some potions, all too complex for her to memorize at that exact second. So instead, she read about the Salem witch burnings. Not one book on the shelves didn't mention it at least once, whether it were a history of witchcraft and practically dedicated to the subject, or a Latin dictionary which still had a whole introduction about it. Only twenty people were killed then, though it seemed incredibly similar to the way life was in her own day and age.

Those women weren't even real witches, real witches wouldn't be caught that easily, in a time before they knew the effect of silver on them, before there were as many as there are now. Witch trials took place in England, too. More women were slaughtered then, but none of them had to work and toil as hard as she had. None of them had had to endure the torture she had. Maybe it would have been better to have a fast death, instead of half a year of pain. Maybe being hanged, being burnt at the stake, was better. She laughed as these ideas came to her mind, because she seriously cannot imagine anything worse than smelling your own melting flesh. Those poor, innocent girls.

She dressed herself before going down, thinking that in such a grand place, it would be rude to attend meals in her nightclothes which had been so kindly provided for her. It was a black set of silky pyjamas, with a floral pattern printed in such a dark gray that you can barely distinguish the two shades of color. It is a few sizes too big, but she can't care about that. The kindness she had been shown was too great to be picky about sizes and it's wasn't like she hadn't worn anything too big before. She was always a particularly small child, not in height, that she was around average in, but in build. She had always had a very skinny frame, no one had even chosen to use politer words like 'slim' when describing her.

She tied her back in a long, red fishtail plait. There were ribbons in the second drawer down in her bedside table. She had done some exploring, finding all the jewelry in the bottom drawer and the top one empty, save for a black, wooden box. This, however, was empty, so there was no point in it being there. She wondered who had decided to put it there and why.

She found an assortment of clothes in the wardrobe, skirts, sweaters, dresses, trousers, jeans, t-shirts, everything. And of course, it was all in black. She made a mental note to ask Lilith the significance of dressing in such dark colors. She had always been a fan of green but it was almost like the residents of the building were scared of anything brighter.

It was a warm day outside, she knew from the slits of sunlight that slid their way through the glass and reached through her silk curtains to her eyes. This crossed the long sleeved dresses, the woolen sweaters and thick jeans off her list. She took a pair of shorts and a very short sleeved and quite clingy T-shirt. It actually seemed to fit her quite well and she weaved a silver, braided belt through the hoops that surrounded her hips. She wore some sneakers as well, and found a sun hat with a wide brim that almost prevented her from being able to see anything above her which certainly wouldn't be helpful if Meg were walking the ceilings again. She took a pair of round sunglasses and tried them on before moving towards the mirror and checking her appearance.

She frowned and the tightly stretched skin on her forehead formed lines just below where her red hair ended. Something still wasn't right. She knew she was wearing it all in the correct way and everything, but yet her outfit still looked incomplete. She knew she didn't have the look of witches from mythology. Those she had grown up with, before all of those fantasy books were confiscated from her, had been beautiful, dark haired. And she knew she was nothing like that at all. But then, at the same time, from even older books, from the fairytales she had read when she was five and younger, the witches had had green skin and unnaturally long noses, along with wandering around with black cats and riding broomsticks through the night sky. But then, none of the other girls were like that either, so she didn't really have to worry about that.

She decided her main issue was Ruby. And though she knew she had no right to listen to a word that girl had to say (it seemed she had too much to say for every single word to be true), she knew it still hurt. She thought maybe she had made a bad first impression on Ruby. For now, she seemed to think of her as some small, shy little thing and she knew that was the way she had been seen  for her whole life. She had even heard the hunters joking about her as they brought her in sobbing for the first time. But she had shown them. And now, she was going to show Ruby, too.

She stopped and found some of those charms she had seen the others wearing, in one drawer. There was a pentagram and she hung this around her neck. It dangled on a thin, black cord and she clipped the two silver ends together at the back of her neck. Then she took a selection, some interlocking triangle, three moons joined together (a full moon in the middle), an Egyptian ankh which she knew from when they had studied Ancient Egypt in third grade, and finally, three spirals that connected as they seemed they were about to end.

As she entered the kitchen, she heard laughter from where Ruby sat and sighed.

"What, you really need that much protection? Can you really not protect yourself?" she asked and gestured towards the many jangling chains seated on Anna's collarbone.

"Does she have to have your approval for everything she does?" Kali said, slowly.

"Screw you, Pinocchio." Ruby tossed the insult back and she saw Kali reach for her nose, gently stroking it. Anna averted her eyes from both of them and began to dig into a plate of eggs with a slice of toast on the side, which the cook had just placed in front of her. She focused herself carefully on shaking the salt on top, squeezing the ketchup in delicate ribbons, before cutting it all into very small chunks. She liked to chew slowly, take her time, to savor each wonderful bite, which she was so lucky to be getting in the first place. She poured herself a glass of milk, which she took from the center of the table and used it to down her final bite.

Lilith appeared in the doorway and this seemed to be the signal for all of the others to begin putting their plates in the middle and start stacking their glasses up.

"Anna," she said as she slid easily between the chairs. "How was your first night?"

"Uh, good, yeah, good," she stuttered. "The room, it's-it's big."

"You don't say," Ruby muttered to Meg who brushed her off.

"Alright girls, today we're going to be doing an activity in the garden."

There was a groan from four of them and Anna looked to either side of her wondering what they were so annoyed about. It should be interesting, this was the one part of the house she hadn't seen yet, besides the attic and the kitchen and she doubted she would be seeing either of those any time soon.

She had caught only a quick glimpse of the garden so far, as she was switching off the light, she had seen green fields stretching out into a clump of tightly planted oak trees.

Soon they were standing near those same trees, in the shadow of the great house. The garden had been fenced off on both sides, with thick planks of wood that stretched as high as at least three times Anna's house.

She sat down in the grass as Lilith scurried backwards and forwards between the dining room and the group of waiting teenage girls, grabbing tools, utensils and books.

She turned to look at Kali.

"Do we do stuff like this much?"

"Oh, you mean Lilith's training exercises? Yeah, all the time. I'd say she brings us out here at least once a week," she drawls in her rich voice. "She says it's to learn skills, skills that all witches need to know, from the situations our powers can't help us with. I guess, when you can make fire, all you can do is keep yourself warm and maybe give someone a nasty burn."

"And you, new girl. You get caught and trapped again, what you gonna do? I doubt they'll have any dead turkeys for you to bring back to life and chase your kidnappers around?" Ruby appeared to have joined in on their competition.

Anna, instead of ignoring her, turned and smiled. "Yeah, well, provided they had no silver, I'd be able to sense any form of life nearby, and I could probably get a nearby tree to grow enough that the branches would burst through the wall and set me free." Anna felt proud of herself for actually saying this.

"Wait, you can do that?" Tessa asked.

"Uh, I think I can." Anna's confident side dropped to the pit of her stomach and shattered into a million pieces and she mentally cursed Tessa. She hadn't had time to try out her new abilities before she was whisked away within the hour. She had been too scared to do anything as she lay locked in her room. Because then, ultimately, she had been trapped and she had done nothing to set herself free, even from her own house, just lay there on her bed, playing with a pot plant and making the tulip buds open and close. And that was the extent of her power so far, that and sensing energy signatures.

Ruby sniggered.

"Girls." They all spun around to find Lilith towering over them at her full height. She had set a garden table beside her with empty jelly jars and behind them, magnified by the curved glass, was a pile of five identical books.

"Anna, as the other girls will tell you, I prefer to give practical lessons, teaching you how to use the power given to you at birth in everyday situations. I am helping you learn things that are not innate like your gifts. Like potion making and spells, teaching you the Latin you will need to make these spells more forceful. The tongue will come to you more naturally than to girls with no magical blood, but will still take some practice."

She held up a jar. "Not one of you can heal. Now, Anna, you give life, but healing wounds is not a part of that. Actually healing abilities are incredibly rare, so rare that it is unlikely, in all your years, you will ever meet a witch who can do it. Which is why we turn to healing drafts. Because, in a way, witchcraft is like mortal Science, except only women like us can use it. We explore what we need for this, not every potion has been discovered, because the list is infinite. And maybe you will be able to create some of your own one day. But that day is not today. Today, you will be looking for certain plants and insects and putting them into your jars, attempting to make some of the beginners' potions with what you find."

She directed her gaze at Anna. "For you, this will be as easy as 'two plus two'. I bet you could trace every living force in the garden within minutes. But, the question is, will you be able to make everything correctly?" Her blue eyes, then darted to each of them, transferring from Anna, to Kali, then Ruby, Meg and Tessa.

"Take a book and two jars each, one for plant life, and the other for bugs and insects. We will be finishing at one, so get started now."

Anna raced forwards, feeling Ruby nudge her out of the way and she stumbled to the side, but regained her balance and took her book and two jars, as ordered.

Lilith had been right. The exercise was easy. Not precisely as easy as she had specified, but within half an hour, Anna had collected three slugs, a snail and a miniature spider. The area behind the patch of trees, where the grass was cool and damp, was where all the mini beasts liked to hide, wriggling around in the dirt.

She was careful handling them, plucking each between her thumb and forefinger and dropping it gently to the bottom of the glass. Despite how it seemed, she was neither squeamish, nor disgusted by the creatures and made sure to fill the containers with fallen leaves.

She had no chosen potion to make at the moment, though she had read about a spell involving slugs and thorns  to be rid of warts. She decided to instead search for the plants she would need, though she suspected this would be harder with the book describing so many rare species.

She screwed the lid back on the jar and then closed the cover. A daisy was growing, just beside her hand, its height stunted by the fence in its way and the lack of sunlight. So Anna decided to do an experiment.

With a hand gently brushing a petal, each, she squeezed her eyes shut.

 _Grow,_ she willed it to do. _Grow, grow, grow._

Her eyelids flicked open. The flower was still there, shrunken and among the grass as it had been before.

_Grow. Grow. Grow._

Still nothing happened. She had never had to ask it to grow before. The reactions had happened instinctually, before.

"Grow!" she found herself yelling at it as it still refused to do anything.

"Who are you talking to, new girl? Your imaginary friend?"

Anna twisted around in fright to see Ruby with her black hair swept across her forehead, crouched in the shadow a few feet away.

"Oh, I get it. You're talking to a flower. I always thought you were a tree hugger, but this is insane."

"Shut up," Anna muttered.

"What was that? I didn't hear you."

"I said, shut up," Anna said and let her full body rotate to face her.

"Aww, you think you're scary. Or are you trying to do that whole magic trick you were describing earlier? It's sweet, watching all you young abominations testing your abilities."

"Yeah, must be fun for you, wishing you could experience it for yourself." She spat out the words before she could stop herself.

Ruby's already nearly black eyes turned dark and stormy and she leered at her.

"What did Lilith tell you? 'She tell you I'm undeveloped? That I'm a liar and powerless?"

"No, no, she-"

"Save it for later, honey. You may be the first to say it, but you're not the first to think it. Do you know how hard it is? Big nose-Kali and her glow in the dark hands, and Tessa the psychic. Always judging me. They're the ones being put down in this world, you'd think they'd know some respect, but there's always going to be the haters, no matter if there's peace for witches or not."

"I swear Lilith didn't say anything like that!" Anna begins to defend herself, but she knows that she was already judging Ruby.

"So what if I do have powers? What if I'm hiding them? What if the last time I showed my powers something so terrible happened that I-" Ruby stopped at that point. "That's it, stick to what you know, tree hugger."

She turned to go.

"Wait, Ruby!"

"This had better be good," she said without looking back.

"I didn't really mean it. I just thought that you didn't like me, you know, that you were judging me, too. I didn't mean to offend you about anything. I just wanted to prove to you that, I don't know, I think I have a desperate need to prove myself about stuff. And sometimes I say stuff I don't mean. I know that's a crappy apology and-sorry I've never really spoken much to another witch. All the witches in the asylum, they didn't say much. Sometimes, it was hard to remember they were even alive. The whole place stank and tasted of death and-I talk a lot when I'm emotional." She sighed and put her head in her hands, to see Ruby is still standing there.

"Whatever," she whispers. "So yeah, maybe I was judging you a little. I guess I treat everyone here in a pretty crappy way."

"No, I get it. You don't want to tell use your powers. And that's fine." Anna knew she still experienced some doubt. But maybe Ruby was a witch, maybe her abilities were so minor that she wouldn't use them. But Anna hated rivalries and right now, she was desperate for Ruby's forgiveness.

Ruby still looked unsure, but she approached her again. "Here, I'll show you what you have to do." She nodded to Anna to get out of the way and then placed her hands where those of the other girl had been.

"It happens when you're not ready, but when you're most at touch with the spiritual dimension. I don't mean to sound like a hippie, or like Tessa, when I say this. But when you want to use your ability willingly, you don't just think what you want to happen. Shut your eyes."

Before Anna could do this, she felt Ruby's warm palms over her eyelids. "You need to leave this world, block out all senses, other than your voice. Imagine you're at the center of the Universe and all light revolves around you, that everything obeys you and only you. Imagine you are the creator, the God of your own little world.

And Anna forgot that she was sitting on the grass in a garden, behind a mansion that was really a sanctuary for teenage witches. She forgot about the cold and mysterious girl behind her and the slugs slithering along the glass bottom of the jar. Because she was in charge, this was her reality, where prejudiced parents and the sin of human beings mattered not. Here, the planets moved for her, the day changed into night when she felt tired and the plants grew at her will. Here, there were no rules, other than her own.

She opened her eyes to slits. The daisy was shooting upwards, its cream colored petals turning milky white and leaves unfurling, the stem extending and twirling itself up her palm.

And Ruby's expression showed that she was impressed.

"I make a great teacher," she said with her hands on her hips, seeming incredibly proud of not just herself, but Anna, too. "Good job, new girl. But you wouldn't be here without my effort. It will be easier next time."

"Yeah, thanks, Ruby."

She paused and turned her head so that they were so close, she could feel her breathing on her, and for a minute, Anna saw not the rough cheeks, the thick eyelashes and the wavy, chocolatey hair, but her soul too, the same way a snake could sense infrared radiation. And then it was gone, as she jerked away.

"I guess you're forgiven, Anna," and Anna grinned because this was the first time she had actually used her name. "What things have you gathered so far?"

Anna picked up her jar with both hands. "Just some bugs."

"Really, that much? I guess I underestimated you, that's probably more than me and the others put together. Considering I don't have any at all. I know I may look like I have it all, but I'm useless at these stupid activities of Lilith's."

Anna gasped. When Ruby wasn't being cruel and selfish, she was still arrogant, just in a good way, like Meg, but yet not. She almost seemed to be doing it in a kindly way.

"I know a good patch of coriander over there, and there's a rose bush behind that tree. I expect we'll find everything we need, there. You want to work together?"

* * *

 

When the Sun was high in the sky, the white light singing her skin, but staying far away from her head, thanks to her hat, Anna was scaling the apple tree for leaves, watching as Ruby remained on firm ground. This had been their routine for the last few hours, Ruby reading out the next plant listed in the book, and if she had seen it before, they would head in that direction and Anna would take a sample.

Ruby said that the subject of plants wasn't her strong suit, she said her looks and sharp tongue did enough for her. But, luckily, Lilith had done the kind job of labelling all the plants with both their English and Latin names, like you would find in garden centers, and Anna was grateful for that.

With her new found confidence, and Ruby's approval, she discovered that working alongside the plants was easier. Every few minutes, she would reach down in the grass and find a single blade, letting it grow to assure herself that she could still do it.

When it was time for them to return to their teacher and fellow students, they came back laughing, sweat-covered and red-cheeked in the heat, and all eyes were on them as they set their grass on the table. Yet, to Anna, every chuckle Ruby gave, every smile she pulled, they all seemed fake. She knew the others fell for it, they thought that was just the way she was, a loud, standing out girl with a slightly cold sense of humor. But now, after Anna had read her, she knew the truth.

Most people would assume, that by reading energy signatures, Anna found how much life a person, had left, how awake they are, what good health they're in. But life doesn't rely on how much energy a person has. You could be the sickest person in the world and still living, still enjoying life. Because a life lived without happiness and freedom, is a waste of a life. And, as far as she was concerned, Ruby was completely dead. Because, her soul contained no care, no passion. She had been drained by something, Anna now sensed it every time she came close to her, though she tried to ignore it. All Ruby saw in herself was shame.

Meg winked as she passed her. "I told you she grew on you."

"Yeah, I know. I just didn't expect it to happen that fast."

"Things don't always happen when you expect them to happen. I may have been trying to defend her, just a little, but I hoped that she would warm up to you a bit. 'Cause sometimes the unspeakable is reality."


	3. Chapter 3

Tessa turned each card over, shuffling them between her fingers with her eyes elsewhere, making the order completely random yet every single, elegantly printed card, fell into exact place on top of the one behind. Then she held the deck out to Anna.

The Summer was racing on which of course meant that the other teenagers were out of school  and, by their own choice, holed up in their houses. And sometimes they partied in the evenings, making the most of the time where they weren't up until Midnight, revising for exams that had nothing to do with their final grades.

She remembered that feeling. She remembered her parents telling her to sleep because she needed rest if she was going to do well and she remembered walking into school, everyone saying they did 'literally no revision' to make themselves seem popular or like they were smart without trying to be, because, sure enough, they would come out of the test with more than 90 percent.

She had known she was clever, of course, though she had never called it clever. She had never enjoyed work, but almost felt pushed to do well at school, like all children do, just more with her especially.

She had never been invited to a house party. She knew she could have turned up, strangers to the host seemed to arrive, ten years older than them, but that had never been her. She had gone to parties, small gatherings with her friends, slumber parties where they would eat popcorn, play truth or dare, and watch horror movies. Like ten year olds. But she had enjoyed them.

She hadn't seen her friends in ages. She would say she didn't have many, but there had been seven of them, all hanging out in a big group together, sitting by the radiator in the locker room. She didn't miss them, because she had always felt like that one person on the outskirts of the group, who never got into the circle and, when they ran off somewhere, was always left behind. She had never felt completely comfortable around them. She had called them her friends, sure, she had liked having people to talk to who were actually nice to her, but she had always known she was different to them, she had always felt it.

Every teenager feels different. They feel like there must have been some mistake for how can these people, who happen to look exactly like them, be their parents? They think they're actually secret princes and princesses, switched at birth and given to the wrong people. She was nothing like that. But she was a witch, and that was not a common thing you tended to find in girls.

Today, they were in Tessa's room. She had been recently practising methods of reading the future, crystal balls and tarot cards. She had taken a walk down to what was listed as an occult store, but was more likely just for kids' magic tricks, in the center of town. Anna was surprised the place hadn't been shut down, certainly in her house, any mention of witchcraft was banned.

Lilith let them out now, sometimes, as long as they were gone no more than three hours, and back before five. That was their curfew hour, though it didn't get dark until eight. But she wanted to stay safe, she didn't want to go back to the asylum. What Lilith was doing was for the best of all of them. So she obeyed.

It had been a month and a half, and to everyone's surprise, Anna and Ruby found themselves growing closer together. It was an unlikely friendship, even Lilith seemed a little shocked to see the two of them talking so much. At the moment, Anna did much of the talking, Ruby had said she's never seen her as the talkative type, but there she was, chattering away.

Ruby had become less unpleasant, to the others, too, though she still occasionally poked fun at the number of meaningless charms Anna tended to wear wherever she went, but this was in more of a teasing, joking way than actually, genuinely meaning to be rude.

Anna felt safe with her charms, so she knew they were useless in protection. She liked that Ruby became more open when she talked, but she knew one of the real reasons she was hanging around her so much was to find out her secret.

"With the right spells, tarot cards can be dangerous," Kali pointed out, just as Anna was reaching forward to make her selection.

"You think they predict the future, but once you've seen what's written, it's set in stone."

"Tarot cards are so vague, though," said Meg and she tossed her head. "Like it just gives objects or emotion, you can interpret them in any way."

"Meg's right. It's just a con to make people believe they're actual witchcraft tools, but all they do is make stupid guesses. Like those fake fortune tellers they used to have in circuses."

"I'm giving it a go," Anna declared, breaking the arguing and causing all four sets of eyes to turn on her. "After all," she added, thoughtfully. "What harm can it do? You said it yourself, Kali. _With the right spells,_ they can be dangerous, and from what I heard, Tessa pulled them straight out of the pack.

"Drum roll please," announced Meg as she rose up above them onto her knees. Anna's hand hovered over the small pile and the quiet drumming of the other witches' fingers on the floor, pressed her onwards. She picked the second card and gently peeled it out.

"Well?"

"Judgement," Anna spoke in an unwavering voice and placed it face up. An angel, playing a trumpet to a crowd of naked, and much smaller people, has been scribed onto it and now stares at them.

"Thou shalt be judged," Meg hissed in a voice that was probably just a little deeper than her typical tone.

Then, each of them took it in turns choosing, Meg got the Moon, Kali got Strength, Ruby got the Lovers, Tessa got Death ("Dun dun duhhhh!" Ruby had yelled), and on Ruby's second go, for she insisted the Lovers was a lame card, she got the High Priestess.

"Told you it was just some dumb game," Ruby said as Tessa began to pack away again, and Anna laughed just a little.

"I think it's pretty genuine," said Meg. "I mean, I'm obviously the Moon. Dark, mysterious, beautiful. Any plans for tonight, guys?"

"Not really many things we can do. It will probably just be more of the same, studying, that kind of thing."

"Yeah, well, plans can change. Party tonight, starts at seven so we should probably try to be there around eight. It's down the road, this morning when I was out, I heard some high schooler planning it. He's bringing drinks, so he says, and he says it's an open party, though he tried to invite me before hitting on me."

"What did you do?"

"Well, I could hardly do anything to get myself noticed though I wanted to smack that ugly dick in his stupid face. I just walked away. It's not like I want to see him again, but I want something to do. I'm so bored!"

"I don't know, Meg. We're not allowed out after five. Won't Lilith catch us?"

"God, you're so uptight Anna. Relax for one moment. I have Lilith wound around my little finger. She knows I can take care of myself, she's not gonna give us any trouble, even if she does catch us."

"Sounds fun," Ruby agreed. "So what do you think, Anna?" she turned on her, expectantly.

Anna shrugged and her rosy pink lips curled up at the corners. "Sure, it will be nice to get a good breath of fresh air. From somewhere other than the garden, anyhow."

* * *

 

By seven thirty, that same evening, Anna stood, waiting in the hallway, stepping from one foot to another while trying not to look suspicious. She knew she was doing a bad job, because, at a mile away, you could spot she was not just standing around there for no good reason. She was meeting somebody.

She put something of an effort into her outfit, removing both hat and sunglasses along with half a dozen of her charms. She enjoyed wearing them, she liked having Ruby laugh at her about them and even though she knew they did no good, they had become almost a fashion statement to her. Still, she hid her pentacle beneath the collar of her dress, hoping people would assume it to just be a friendship necklace instead of anything that might seem occult.

Her hair cascaded down her back in a fiery waterfall, two hair clips pulling her parting back from her wide eyes which she had faintly outlined. She had colored in her lips with a red pen Meg had lent her. Older and more experienced than her, she had said the red brought out the color in Anna's face and matched her hair.

She pulled on a pair of lace gloves, the same material as her knee length dress, chosen because, when asking for advice, Ruby said that for party wear, it was best to show off a little leg. And Anna had such long legs, too. The gloves were to obscure the intricate patterns and symbols inked onto her hands, more protection symbols from her spell books, which she now thoroughly studied until she had memorized whole chapters. She liked the way the spidery lines wove across her skin like wet ink on parchment or tissue paper.

Ruby came down the stairs, though she bade her time so as not to be heard. Anna sighed. She looked great with her hair coiled behind her head in a spiral knot and a slightly more formal leather jacket than usual. With her hair back, Anna could see her ears, which held little silver, skull studs, which the fading sun through the windows, reflected off.

And then, Meg came, looking fantastic as usual, in black shorts and a black crop top, her hair carefully styled into the waves which bounced on her collar bone.

Soon they had left the building, and, with the peach and candy floss pink sky behind it, Anna could almost imagine that their mansion that stored away witches, the females deemed dangerous and monstrous, it looked more like a fairytale palace.

Evidently, a party was going on in the street. Music was booming out of a door about three houses down, so loud that the very concrete below them, which was smooth and polished, vibrated. It sent shivers through Anna's bones. They found themselves as part of a crowd, being ushered into the house which smelled of vodka and urine, as part of a massive wave.

* * *

 

A curly haired boy of about sixteen, served them each a drink, his surprise cocktail, so he called it, though while his back was turned, Anna swore she saw him empty most of a can of beer into her tall glass, then add a few drops of apple juice to fill it to the top. He winked at her as it slid across the kitchen counter, which, for one night only, had been converted into a mini bar.

This was teenager land, where the drinking age of twenty one had no meaning, where she suspected the spoilt boy in charge of this gathering, whom Meg had pointed out to her as he pranced around the sitting room with his arm linked with that of a blonde haired girl who must have been a head taller than him at the very least, had asked his parents to buy the alcohol for him. Or maybe an older friend with a fake ID had got the drinks. He seemed like a stereotype of a high school jock whose only issue in life was banging the head cheerleader.

Anna hated stereotypes, almost as much as she hated this natural pecking order, this teenager world. Here, everyone was so oblivious to witches and the way they were treated. No one here could possibly know of the asylums, of the constant labor, day and night, and still be out celebrating like the world was perfect.

Anna gulped down the cocktail. The sensation of it burning her taste buds was rancid and acidic and she set the glass back on the table with an expression of pure disgust. Meg had drifted away to some upstairs room, earlier on with some guy she had most likely never seen in her life. Now, she was left alone with Ruby, who would glance over every few moments, between sips of her own cocktail.

"So what do you think of this thing so far? Not as big a deal as the movies make it out to be, right?"

Anna shook her head.

"Never been to a house party before. Always knew they were a load of crap, though. Horny adolescents, hooking up in closets in bathrooms. It's like the status quo, by the end of the night, if you're not wasted as hell and lying on top of a guy you wouldn't sleep with in your wildest dreams, you're lame."

"Guess we're lame then," Anna said, truthfully.

"Lame's just a label, you know. We're better than all these kids here. Bet they can't do dark magic. Their only super power is getting over the hangovers they're gonna have in the morning, totally not judging. If they want to do what they think is _cool,_ that's their problem."

"I've always felt I was pushed to be someone I wasn't, too early on. My parents wanted me to be successful and were always pushing for me to try hard in exams, to achieve the highest. I was stuck in that mindset, but at the same time, I wanted to be the others, who were dating at eleven, getting drunk at twelve, no concept of the world, yet they said they would move out as soon as they could. I was never one of them, but I tried so hard to fit in. The legal age is eighteen, but nowadays, you're expected to be fully grown by eight or nine. Make believe ended way before I was ready for it to. But, I guess by hoping I could carry on with my games, that wish came true. I never expected that I was an actual witch. When we pretended to be witches, we didn't even know the real things existed."

"Yeah," was Ruby's only sign of reply and Anna considered the possibility that maybe she hadn't heard any of her speech, she was so quiet, her muscles were growing firm and tense beneath the surface.

"There's more than you than meets the eye," mused Ruby with a little flick of her hair. "I've noticed that about you these past few months. When you first walked in, you seemed like some perfect little princess with good upbringing, who would turn your nose up at everything you deemed below you, I always thought I would grow to hate you. And look how things turned out."

"Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't have judged me." Anna echoed Ruby's words from that warm second day in the garden. "And you're friendlier than you seemed back then, too."

"Come on, new girl," and she was still calling her that, even though she had been at the school a month, she was still the newest pupil. "I think we both know there's more to it than that." Her volume grow lower, her pitch higher as she looked Anna full on.

This was it, this was the moment, Ruby was going to discover why she was so fascinated about her. It was all over.

"I need to show you something."

Was she going to tell her? Anna puzzled over this. She wanted-no-she needed to know the cause of Ruby's unhappiness, she could feel her empty soul right there, before her.

Ruby's dark head tilted forwards, and as her nose slid across Anna's, there lips met, unmoving, frozen in a single Polaroid in time. A million blue butterflies danced within her stomach, an effect of the small amount she had to drink perhaps, or the what she felt that second. Sound mattered not, the music was just something natural for them to move in time to, the boys laughing and wolf whistling around them was preferable not to have. Anna sensed everything, the strawberry lip gloss that she tasted on Ruby burning bright red stars in her mind. With some surprise, she let out a harsh breath which caused Ruby to pull away.

"I shouldn't have done that." Then, without looking back at her once, she turned and went out into the hallway, leaving Anna lone with an unfinished cocktail and a load of smirking boys.

"Assholes," she whispered and took another sip before having finally had enough of this filth and pushing it away.

As the beat around her evolved so that some sort of strings instrument was sharply strumming the introduction, a tall boy with messy hair, which he continued to sweep back so that it resembled a bird's nest even more, took the seat next to her.

"Hey," he said, resting his elbow on the table next to him.

"Hey," she murmured back with about as much enthusiasm as a polar bear told to sunbathe.

He began to chat away from her, desperately trying to fix eye contact, though she kept her face well sheltered from him, hoping this was enough of a signal for him to just leave her alone. But he didn't. He went through the basics, his name, which she couldn't care less about, but looking back probably would remember it to be something simple like 'Jack or Carl or Ben'. But it was not something she wanted to remember. Thankfully, he never asked her name.

He began to explain about his school life and everything and Anna just didn't care. If she could just tell him to leave her alone, possibly using stronger language. But she was not that kind of person. She knew she was too nice. And she knew this was a problem. Still, all she could concentrate on right now was that kiss. Her lips twitched at remembering how Ruby's lips had felt against hers. She had to admit, she hadn't been expecting that. But had she actually enjoyed it.

The boy, still under the delusion that she was actually interested in a single word that fell off his tongue, finally got her attention.

"I saw that lesbo kiss you. 'Saw you turn her down."

So that was what he thought happened. She suspected that must have been how it looked from a distance, them together like that and then Ruby abruptly getting up and leaving.

"'You know her?"

Anna's focus had been pulled away, though again because, by the door, five men with strong backs and wide chests which their gray shirts hung onto like a person hanging from a cliff, were lining the doorway, making room for each guest as they walked in. They didn't look like any relation to the host like a dad or the overprotective uncles. They were certainly too old to be attending. One of them stared her down, his glare like ice, slowly freezing her brain over.

"Who are they?"

"Who?" the boy asked.

"Them, those guys by the door, the soldier people." That was what they resembled, soldiers, not in their clothes, but just in the way they stood, showing off their superiority to everyone else, like proud statues.

"Oh, them?" He followed her gaze and pointed and Anna prayed he would put his arm down so he would stop attracting so much attention. "Didn't you know? They're hunters from those witch asylum. Apparently, they've been called to watch outside every social event. I heard some of those bitches escaped from their grasp and they're looking out for them wherever they can."

Little did they know a whole coven of witches was right under their noses.

"How do they know who's a witch?" Anna tried to sound only curious as she asked, trying to push all the fear out of her voice. Her heart felt like it would tear through her rib cage in a comical, cartoon sort of style.

"I dunno. But my bro, Brad over there." He gestured towards a tall boy with a mullet haircut. "He says they've got special detectors. I don't know how they work. You've gotta just hope they'll find every one of them."

Anna clenched her fists tightly together so that her nails, which had grown to a medium length and been painted with glossy black varnish by Meg, made half moon, red marks on her palm. Her chest rose and fell beneath her top and she looked through the crowd. Meg was in a corner at the other end of the room, talking to a slightly older and more attractive boy than the one currently in her company. She was dragging a hand through her hair and the boy was leaning closer and closer with every thump of the drum, completely entranced with her.

"Excuse me, I have to go. I have to, uh, use the bathroom." As she scurried away, it immediately dawned on her how unlikely it was that he would buy her story. So she had to move swiftly.

"Meg," she called as the crowd swept her forwards. The girl showed no sign of having acknowledged her.

"Meg!" she repeated, this time louder and more forceful and she turned.

"Anna," hissed Meg. "Can't you we're kinda in the middle of something?"

"Who's this?" her new friend asked. "Your sister?" His eyes past between them as he tried to search for any resemblance.

"Oh, no. We go to the same school. Anna, can't this wait a minute, I'm busy?"

"Meg, this is urgent. It's about, uh, important things." She was already pulling her away and the boy's sticking up black hair could be seen like a high rooftop in the middle of a city.

"Call me," he yelled.

"You gave him your number?"

"No, he gave me his number. It's not much use anyway, though. You know Lilith doesn't let us have phones of our own."

"I didn't actually. I didn't have a phone when I arrived."

"I was hoping for just a one night thing with him."

"This can wait for now," Anna said as they came into the hallway. It was deserted except for a couple under the coat rack, slobbering all over each others' faces.

"Those men waiting by the door? They're witch hunters. According to the douche I was talking to, they have some sort of a detector to tell when witches are around. And I swear they were staring at me."

Meg cocked her head. "Are you sure? Are you sure it's not a false alarm?"

"We can't take a risk, can we? We could put all of the others in danger."

"Right." She nodded. "Where's Ruby? Wasn't she with you?"

"She-" Anna decided not to mention the kiss. "She ran off somewhere."

"Okay, you find her and get out. I'll hold the hunters off. They're the hot, muscular guys, aren't they?"

Anna shrugged. "Sure."

As Anna panted and galloped up the stairs, she saw a single hunter, one dressed in a black jacket with spiky, dark blonde hair, toss the passionate couple out of the way and start towards Meg who was already walking up the cream colored wall.

"Ruby?" she whispered, now on the second floor. She pulled open the door to a storage room. A boy slowly unzipped a girl's dress and neither looked up as she slyly closed the door again. In the bedroom, there was no Ruby. But then, she struck success as she saw dark hair falling over the face of a girl who was seated on the floor in the bathroom. Anna knows it is her without even checking, and runs forward.

"Ruby," she gasps.

"Look, I know what happened back there was weird. I'm sorry, I guess it just-"

"Ruby, we really don't have time for this. There are witch hunters in the building, Meg's holding them off, but it won't be long before they get us."

"Witch hunters?" She squeezed her hands together, panic stricken and petrified.

"Yeah. We can't get out through the main entrance. There are more hunters there."

"Alright, alright." She took a moment to think, still looking shaken and pale. "Follow me."

They began to take off down the stairs. The hallway was full now, people crowding around the unconscious couple who now had huge swellings on their heads from the blows they received. A girl with hair in a mousey brown bob and cheeks dotted with dark freckles, was poking them to get a reaction. Anna hoped they would be able to sneak out with the distraction. Meg, in her attempt to hold them off seemed to have vanished from the room, hopefully keeping all five hunters busy somewhere else. Unfortunately, her wish was disproved as she noticed one man standing by the door, the same who had knocked the teenagers out. He was trying to force a concerned face for his own handiwork. He had seen her face! He was not looking right now.

And then, another of them came in through the doorway, he tried to break up the cluster of them.

"Shit, shit, shit." Anna just made out Ruby's words. She was standing in front of her, looking from left to right, there was no way of reaching the door.

"Erm, Anna. I'm gonna do something, and I need you to promise me, you won't tell anyone what happened tonight."

Anna nodded a little too firmly, a little too fast, realizing the promise she had just made.

"Okay, I'm going to have to trust you. Take my hand."

As their hands laced together, Ruby checked no attention was on the two of them and then closed her eyes. She dragged Anna straight at the wall. What was she doing? Was she trying to make a hole that they could escape through? She found herself closing her own eyes in the hope she wouldn't break her nose. And then, her cheeks were being whipped by night air. No brick smashing into her face. She blinked and Ruby tore her hand away from hers.

"Did we just walk through the wall?" She asked, gaping at the building behind them, which was still booming with rap music. The building they had been in less than five seconds ago.

"Yeah. Pretty awesome, right?" She brushed a hand through the middle of her hair, like Moses parting the red sea.

"When did you discover you could do that?

"A while ago. It was the fourth power I discovered."

"Fourth? You mean-"

"We'd better get back to the house quickly, before they realize their two mystery witches are missing.

They began to stride quickly back down the road, making big steps and avoiding any suspicious stares. That was when they saw him, standing in front of the gates to their own place of safety. It was the guard, the handsome blonde haired one, his face bold and terrifying with the moon shining down on it.

They froze in a perfect picture trepidation

"You have no idea what I did to get out of there," his deep voice rumbled. And then, the skin on his face bubbled, his hair darkened to nearly black and lengthened to his shoulders, his eyes grew so that they were brown instead of green and he shrunk down to be shorter than both of them. Now, wearing a cheeky grin and an enormous, man's jacket, which hung off her petite and curvy frame, was Meg.

"Sneaked up behind him, and touched his neck. That was all I needed. I told them I had seen you running out of the back door and convinced the others to let me go after you. I stole some of his clothes, too." She ripped off the jacket now, and the shirt which seemed like more of an ugly, shapeless dress on her, tossing them both onto the floor and then bending to pick them up. Now, she was back in her crop top and wearing his overhanging jeans which she was struggling to hold up.

"Meg, that was so creepy. Give us a warning before doing that again." They were alone again, all the attention distracted to the loud house a few paces down from them. No one cared about the three, laughing teenage girls in odd clothes.

"What, I thought you would've wanted to see my power in action."

Little did she know Anna had seen two witches' powers that night.

"Still the looks on your faces. That party blew. I bet we could do a hundred times better. No one tell Lilith about what happened, though, or she'd never let us leave the house again." She inserted her key into the lock on the gate and they began to climb up the chiseled stairs.

"So what if that guard you were imitating walked in on you?"

"That's the beauty of my power, kid." Anna thought it was a bit silly she called her 'kid' when they were less than two years apart in age. "When I turn into someone, the actual person gets knocked out until I change back. 'Course I've never stayed in someone else's form for more than one hour. It's the warning on the package."

"What happens if you do?"

"I don't know. I've just always known not to. I almost forgot," she suddenly exclaimed, and pinched Anna's wrist. Anna felt dizzy for a moment, stars swam in front of her eyes and Meg was gripping her shoulders, steadying her to her feet.

"What was that?"

"That subconscious thing in the back of my head that controls my transformations needs an idea of the person's DNA first. Congratulations, Anna. I can now impersonate you." She sneaked upstairs, and then, Anna and Ruby were alone in the hallway.

"Listen, Ruby, about earlier-"

"Forget it."

"Ruby, I'm trying to-"

"Forget it. It was a heat of the moment thing, I was drunk, let's pretend it never happened."

Anna was about to point out that neither of them had taken more than two sips of their interesting cocktail, nowhere near enough to get them drunk.

"But Ruby, I-"

Her head swiped round with ferocious purpose.

"Jeez, Anna! Can't you just let something go?"

She ran up the stairs, leaving Anna standing, staring at the spot where she had been.


	4. Chapter 4

Lilith said their new powers could emerge at any time, when they were least expecting it. Anna, now with two gifts, as it turned out her ability to make plants grow at their accelerated rates, was her second gift, had seen this theory in action.

About a day after the party, which the three witches who had been involved had kept very quiet about, they had decided to hold a horror movie night. In a particularly scary scene, where a girl was being strung up in the basement of a haunted house by an evil axe murderer, which she had been dared to explore by a group of her idiotic friends. Both Tessa and Anna had covered their eyes while Meg giggled and Ruby remained completely unimpressed. But Kali's was the most shocking reaction at all.

After showing, she was not scared in the slightest, she had tried to mimic Anna and Tessa, by pulling an overdramatic scream. Except that the overdramatic scream had been so overdramatic that it knocked all of them away from her with their pinky fingers planted in their ears, toppled over a chair, and shattered the glass vase on the coffee table.

Once they had all recovered, Lilith announced that Kali, along with her flame throwing hands, was a banshee.

"She can send nearly ultrasonic sound waves."

"That's above the limit of the human hearing," Anna had said.

"Nerd," Ruby muttered and Anna looked at the floor, hurt. The two of them had been going back and forth, Ruby trying to act like things were normal, but remaining distant from her. And all because of that kiss. Anna had no idea what to think about that. If she could just get her head around it, everything would feel so much better. But Ruby wouldn't even let her mention it, wouldn't even let her explain her confusion, so they could figure it out together.

It was July the third and they were all sitting in the living room, Tessa watching some romantic comedy while the others tried to relax. Anna was reading some more, carefully memorizing the instructions for love potion and planning on practising it later if the cook would let her into the kitchen to use the kettle, when Tessa suddenly sat up.

"It's a full moon tonight."

"What are you, a werewolf?" Ruby asked without taking time to even look at her, and readjusting her newly acquired ear piercing.

"No. I'm just saying, full moon is a sacred night for us."

"Why?"

"I don't know." She crossed her arms. "It just is. It's special for witches, alright."

"So what are you planning on doing then?"

"Well, I was at the occult store earlier-"

All of them groaned and she stared at them, angrily.

"And they had an Ouija board on display. So I bought it. I thought we could test it out tonight, see if there are any spirits lurking in the attic."

"Dude, there's like a billion books and a whole movie franchise along with countless TV shows about why using Ouija boards aren't a good idea," Ruby pointed out.

"Yeah, but they weren't witches, were they?"

"I still don't think it's a good idea." Anna tried to squeeze in her opinion.

"There's not much you think is a good idea, is there?" yelled Ruby, leaving all of them in an awkward silence. Anna hated it, she hated the way Ruby looked at her, as if she were something to be detested, as if she had some pungent stench about her. She wished she would take her anger out on someone else.

"So, as I was saying, since I'm a clairvoyant," Tessa continued.

"For the thousandth time, you're _not_ a clairvoyant!"

"I am a clairvoyant!"

"NO YOU'RE NOT!" Both of them stood up, approaching each other with narrowed eyes, you could almost imagine steam sprouting from their ears. Everyone else backed away.

"YES I AM!" Tessa screeched and she swung her fist at Ruby.

"What is going on!" It was Lilith, snaking her way between them and standing, blocking the space between the two witches.

"Girls, what are you so angry about?"

"I-I don't." Ruby put both hands to her temple and drew back. "I don't remember."

"Me neither," Tessa agreed.

Lilith turned to the three bystanders. "Did any of you see what happened?"

"They were arguing over whether Tessa was a clairvoyant, or not," offered Anna. "And then they just started fighting."

"And did any of you want them to get angry with each other?"

Everyone was puzzled, but slowly, Anna raised her hand.

"I didn't mean to, I was annoyed with Ruby and-"

"I think we've discovered your newest ability, Anna." The entire room began to applaud and her cheeks bloomed red.

"What can I do?"

"You can make people feel strong bursts of emotion.It's known as empathy, I think it stems off your ability to sense energy signatures. You can use these energy signatures to control a person's emotions. It seems in your case, you prefer anger, that was quite a display, but I knew a witch once, like you. She used it to make a group of followers, all deeply in love with her. Or more likely lusting after her. This is good, Anna, it means you're up to three. Other than me, I'd say that's the most any of us has. It means all your others will come very soon."

_____

Tessa shook her awake in the late evening. For a minute, her dreams were so engaging, that she saw Ruby, standing over her, gently grasping her arm. And then, the facade vanished and the short haired girl was there instead, fully dressed.

"Come on, we're going to try out the Ouija board."

"Tessa, now?"

"It will be fun."

"So said the newlywed couple who decided to explore the mental asylum."

"Anna," she drawled and pulled her by the arm.

"Alright, I'm coming." She struggled up and, without getting the chance to dress, went to stand in the hallway where the other four were lined up.

"This is more stupid than that whole Bloody Mary legend," said Ruby as they climbed the stairs to the attic. Tessa already had a torch, but Kali insisted on lighting a few candles too, along with a cigarette. The smoke filled the air, drifted passed the exposed moon, which Tessa had opened the window for so they could be illuminated by its light.

She unfolded the board and set down the triangular piece with the hole, which Anna could not remember the name of at all.

All of them put a hand in the middle, it was difficult to fit them all onto the small piece of plastic. Then, Tessa shut her eyes and began to chant in Latin.

"What's she saying," whispered Anna.

"No idea."

"SPIRITS OF THE HOUSE!" Tessa shouted and all four of them put their fingers to their lips. "Spirits of the house," she said, slightly quieter. "Can you hear us?"

Nothing happened.

"I said, can you hear us?"

Again nothing.

"I can't believe you waste your money on this shit," said Ruby, which was when the piece began to move along towards the 'YES'.

"Tessa, stop doing that."

"I'm not doing this, it's the spirits."

"Sure, and I'm Paris Hilton."

"Did you die in this house?" Tessa asked the unknown spirit. The piece stayed exactly where it was, over the YES.

"Who killed you?"

The piece was completely stationary.

"Can't think of any more answers, can you Tessa?"

Tessa seemed disappointed, angry no one would believe her, and she felt sorry for the poor girl. All this hard work to prove herself, and she didn't even have a physical power like the others.

A ball rolled along the floor, coming to a rest beside Ruby.

"Who did that?"

There was no answer. A children's toy chest in the corner burst open, fairy wands and cars flew past them, one of them knocking Tessa on the head and she collapsed on the floor, unmoving other than the steady rise and fall of her chest. A plastic crown hit Ruby in the back and Kali conjured up a ball of fire in her hand, shooting it at the spot near the now empty box, which caught alight.

"Oh my God!" said Anna, clutching the nearest thing to her, which turned out to be Ruby. She took a deep breath and held back her panic. "Kali, try to put out the fire. Try fighting...fire with fire. Ruby, get Tessa out of here, Meg, get Lilith as fast as you can."

As the fire began to spread, for the floor was made of wood, Meg scurried away, Ruby scooped Tessa up into her arms and started carrying her away, slower than her, but still speedier than she would have normally. Kali was already shooting new flames, she saw her standing with the fire licking her face and hair, but Kali did not even seem to be getting so much as burned.

"Who are you?" Anna questioned the board and the piece slid to the letter section. Q-U-E-E-

"What the Hell are you doing?" Lilith grabbed Anna around the waist, pulling her away from the board in the middle of the floor. Behind her was Meg with a bucket of water which she carelessly spilled over the raging sea of orange and leaving the floor scorched and the room smelling of burnt wood.

* * *

 

"What were all of you thinking?" None of them had ever seen Lilith this angry. She had yelled at them for the past ten minutes, letting none of them get a word in edgeways. She looked at her, apologetically.

Tessa was awake now, and the jumpiest of all of them, starting at every word and looking over her shoulder, like she expected what she had deemed 'the spirit of the house' to reappear and start chucking more things at her.

"Ouija boards, dark magic! I would have thought you at least Meg, would have known better. And Anna, I'm so disappointed in you."

"What she did was brave!" Ruby said and all of them looked over in shock, including Anna. Most of them had reverted back to the idea that the once friends were mortal enemies again.

"No, what she did was irresponsible and reckless. You should have all run straight away and come and found me, not decided to find out the name of the spirit."

"It said it was called 'quee'. Could it have been about to say queen?"

"Maybe this used to be a palace."

Lilith jerked into motion. "Queen, you say?" And then her brow furrowed again and she turned on each of them. "That's it, I don't want any of you up there again, do I make myself clear?"

"But the spirit of the house-"

"There is no spirit of the house! There's no such thing as ghosts. What happened was a trick of your imaginations'!"

"Then how come we all saw it?" Ruby roared. "Were we all hallucinating?"

"There are no ghosts! No one has ever died in this house, and God help me, no one ever will. Can't you see I'm trying to protect you. In fact, that's it, I'm taking away your privileges. No more leaving the house, no more visiting the attic. I need to keep an eye on you at all times, it seems, like you're toddlers. No more using your powers, yes, that's right Kali, no more cigarettes. I know where you go when I allow you out," she said at Kali's dismayed face.

"No more going to that occult shop, Tessa. And Meg, no more parties! This conversation is over."

As Lilith left the room, Anna stared at her back which was clothed in a black dressing gown. The oldest of the them had always seemed so nice, so caring and strong, being the only teacher in charge of a gang of teenage, rebellious, punk witches. It was enough to make a normal mother insane, but she had coped so well, treating each of them like her own daughter.

But now, she had seen this new, fearful side of her, like an earthquake, which you never knew when it was going to strike.

But Anna had seen that ghost. Or at least, she had seen what it had done. And she was going to find out who exactly it was. She just had to figure out what Queen, or the other possible words, could mean.

* * *

Once all back in bed, Anna pulled the blanket high over her head, lying her head on its side with on ear pressed into the pillow and the other hopefully blocked by the sheet. It was something she used to do to prevent herself from hearing in the night. It made her less jumpy, meant she could sleep easier the evening after accidentally ending up watching a horror movie with her brothers. Except their actually was a ghost.

She wasn't entirely afraid, though she felt her heart pounding at her fear. But she wasn't entirely afraid, she told herself. She just didn't like the idea that this so called ghost might come and get her in her sleep. So basically, she was afraid.

But this insomnia was good, it meant she could figure some things out. Like the event with the Ouija board.

A Queen. Why would a Queen have lived in this house and died here? Sure it was fancy, but it was hardly a palace.

Light footsteps padded along her floor, straight for her and no, this was not a trick of her mind. Unable to bear her temptation, she raised her head from the pillow and almost jumped out of her skin as Tessa, now in her pajamas, stood shivering in the middle of the room.

"Tessa, I'm not coming back to the attic with you. It's too dangerous. And Lilith will catch us. But I'm trying to figure the whole thing out-"

"No, it's not that. It's just I've been having nightmares. And you seem like the nicest of us so I thought you'd be the only one to believe me."

She sat up, feeling the pressure on the bed as it sank just a little. "Alright. Tell me about these nightmares."

"So I'm chained up and I'm lying on the floor and I can barely see. But I can see the staircase and Ruby is at the top, looking down at me. The others are all chained up, Meg, Kali, you. And Ruby has like this dark look in her eyes. I thought maybe you could find something out, seeing as you're closest to her."

"We're not really that close-"

"Please. It's really serious, Anna."

Anna pondered for a moment. She wouldn't have believed it for herself if she hadn't taken that secret energy reading of Ruby. There was something wrong with her, and if they didn't find it out, she could be the reason for the coven falling, maybe even for the end of witch kind."

"I'll see what I can do, Tessa."

* * *

 

Anna was reclining on the carpet, braiding together little twigs so they made earthy rings. So far, she had seven of them which lay in a circle, her with her arm in front of them to stop anyone stepping on them or accidentally sweeping them away. It was fiddly, tricky work and she didn't want to have to start all over again.

"Erm, Anna, what are you doing?"

She gazed upwards. Meg was standing over her, wearing a high top with a crescent moon printed on the front and the caption, 'Moon Child'. She still hadn't let the joke with the tarot card go and Anna assumed she had gone oit and bought it before they were banned from leaving completely.

And life was boring, not leaving, the only breath of fresh air she could get being from the back garden where she would lie in the grass, try to make the trees grow higher and reverse the process so that they were just little shrubs no more than a meter tall, before letting them grow back again. Her restlessness was growing, was this what her, and all the others would be sentenced to for eternity? Witches certainly weren't being allowed back into society any time soon.

She understood, she knew it was for their own protection, the same lecture she had heard the entire way through middle school about why they had to wait for the traffic lights to change when crossing the road and never answer the door to anyone, always wait for their parents to do that job.

"I'm making rings out of twigs."

"Yeah, I can see that. I'll ask a different question. Why?"

She handed up a book which Meg frowned at. "Here, it says that nature witches like to wear parts of dead plants as jewellery and it makes the soul of the plants they're controlling trust them more. Of course, they can't have killed the plant. I found them, they fell off the big oak tree."

"Nature witch, huh? Is that what you're calling yourself now? I would have gone for necromancer myself. Still, I don't see your power at making strong feelings of emotion have anything to do with nature."

"I don't want to call myself a necromancer. I've read up on them and it's a load of dark magic, they used to raise armies of dead soldiers to fight against the opposing side. And I'm not like that."

"It's crap, that's what those books are. A load of crap. Those normal human beings think they know anything about witches and magic. Bet they don't know what it feels like to be turned into a freak. You shouldn't pay attention to all that 'making the plants trust you' shit."

"Oh, and they're for protection, too."

"You and your protection, what exactly do you think is going to attack us? Whatever, I'm leaving."

"Wait, wait, Meg." She got up onto her hands and knees, crawling forward. "I need to talk to you about something."

"Shoot."

She glanced slowly at the ajar door. "Close the door first."

Meg obliged and then sat down on the couch. "What's the problem?"

"So you know that party we went to about a month ago?"

"No. I must have forgotten it," she grinned. "Of course I remember, we got chased out of there by witch hunters. What about it?"

"Alright, so while you were flirting with that guy-"

"Yeah."

"Ruby kissed me."

"Oh." She looked slightly taken about, this was clearly not at all what she had been expecting. "Shit. So are you two together now?"

"No. She ran away afterward."

"Right. What's your problem at the moment?"

"I think I might be starting to like her. And I need your advice since you're so-"

"Watch it!"

"I was gonna say good at flirting. I swear I was."

"Sure you were. Well the first step to getting together with someone is making sure they like you. A lot of the time, they don't even realize they like you, but there are clear signs. Tessa would probably be better to ask since she actually reads minds, but I doubt she's dated anyone."

Anna hung her head.

"Wait, you've never dated before? How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"Wow, okay."

"My family were pretty conservative. They had a whole celebasy thing going on which meant I wasn't even allowed to talk to a boy."

"Bet they're going to be so proud of you now with your little girl crush."

"Screw them," she muttered. "They threw me out of my house."

"That's what I like to hear." Meg sighed and stared out of the window where a mother was walking past the iron railings of their house without a second glance at their hideaway, with a baby tucked into her freckled arms.

"It takes a while for most of us to get over our families. When I first arrived here, I used to sit by that window and wait for my dad. I hoped one day he would come back for me. I thought he needed me. My mom died when I was three, it was always just me and him, he said I was the only girl for him. I couldn't bear the idea of him being alone. Or of me being alone. So back to Ruby, you have any idea why she kissed you?"

"No. When I tried to ask her about it, she just said stuff like she was drunk. But she'd only had one sip of her drink. Maybe she just gets drunk easily."

"Sounds to me like you're trying to deny she likes you so you can just forget the whole thing. You've got an advantage in this situation. The purpose of flirting is to make someone have an interest in you, but she already has that. Did you like her before?"

"I think I probably did. Deep down. I just...didn't realize it until now."

"Well I can't give you much, but I think the best thing you can do is corner her. Make sure she can't get away and tell her your true feelings, just hope she'll accept you."

A sharp ping from the general direction of the hallway made both of them freeze.

"Was that the doorbell? I've never seen anyone visit the house before, other than us and we all have keys."

"There's an enchantment. No one can see the building unless they're actually looking for it and we don't get mail anyway so there's no trouble with the mailman."

They heard the crescendo of Lilith's heels clicking against the marble floors as she trotted closer towards them and shortly after that, cries of delight as the visitor was let in through the gates and then the door.

The two girls dashed towards the source of noise. A young woman in a professional seeming coat, with honey brown hair in curls, and a pearl necklace which held tightly to her throat, was kissing Lilith on either cheek. Every single detail about her made her seem like someone very smart, someone who liked living on the upper side of life, a businesswoman perhaps. She had very spiteful and large green eyes.

"Meg," she called out, upon seeing them, and slinging her purse over her shoulder, kissed both of Meg's cheeks too. Her accent was English, quite posh, Anna would say.

"Ruby, Kali, Tessa! Can you come down here," Lilith shouted up the stairs and their footsteps could soon be heard resonating off the walls. Soon, all five of them were in a sort of gatherig around the two adults.

"Meg, Ruby, Tessa, you already know her. And Kali and Anna, this is Bela Talbot. She's a family friend."

"A saleswoman," Bela corrected. "Occult items are my speciality. I tend to visit my good friend Lilith here, every six months. I have to say, it's been a while since I saw any new faces, and two at once. This is wonderful. Numbers are growing."

"Well Kali actually arrived about a week after the last time you visited."

"Are you a witch?" Anna asked her, and all of them turned intense glares of warning on her. Clearly, this was not a suitable question. But Bela just laughed.

"No. I was born into a witching family with a little magical blood. But I don't have abilities like you girls do. I decided to devot my life to providing my select customers with rare items. Speaking of which, what day of the week was each of you born on?"

They found this a curious, and rather coincidental topic as they discovered that each of the five students had been born on a different one of the first five days of the week. Meg had been born on a Monday, Ruby on Tuesday, Tessa on Wednesday, Kali on Thursday and Anna on Friday. Even more curious was when Lilith stated that she was a Saturday's child.

Up until then, Bela had been rummaging around in her purse, pulling out a set of papers which looked very much like contracts, and a fountain pen.

"Yes, you're going to need some metals and some jewels-"

"Excuse me," Anna interrupted again. "But for what?"

"Ah, your amulets. Generally, the day of the week you were born on helps decide what your abilities will be. Tuesday, for example, is the day of Mercury and gives the powers if healing and flying. So of course, for that, you'll need some platinum and opal." She began to distribute small plates of metal, Lilith keeping an uncertain eye on her as she claimed that they would make them stronger if they wore them on their named day.

As Anna took her plate of copper and her emeralds to make a Venus amulet, seeing as that was the planet  of Friday, Bela handed the contracts over, the final price coming down to five hundred and forty nine dollars.

"Overpriced," Ruby whispered. Anna's heart hammered.

"Oh really, Bela."

"I'll throw in the copper infused skull and make it six hundred."

Lilith shook her head. "Why do I put up with you? Deal."

They shook hands and Lilith made sure to read all the small print before signing in curling letters. Bela then kissed her again on both cheeks and fled.

"Bela's a good person really," she said, once the saleswoman was gone. "But untrustworthy.  Make sure you check everything before hand as what she sells you can quite often be fake."

Everyone started splitting up, getting ready to start work on their amulets as had been instructed by their teacher before dinner. Anna stuffed her newly aquired items into her pocket with her hands decorated with her rings, before sneaking into Ruby's room behind the dark haired girl.

When she sensed her presence, she turned with a face of filth and disgust. She turned to leave. Branches from the pot plant on Ruby's bedside table shot upwards, blocking her exit.

"You realize this counts as harassment, right?"

"Ruby, I need to talk to you. You've been avoiding me ever since the kiss."

Ruby flinched and then went to sit down on her bed. "It doesn't matter."

"I need to get an answer out of you. I want to know why you kissed me, what you were thinking when you did."

Ruby got up again, just split seconds after relaxing, seeming exasperated. "Look, I thought there was something going on for a while. It was the way you always used to look at me when we were in the garden together. Maybe it was your whole power with messing with people's emotions, maybe I started to like you because of that."

"Well then why? Why did you run away before I could talk to you about it. Why did you avoid me for days?"

"I knew I made a mistake from the second our lips touched. I could tell you weren't comfortable with what was going on."

"What are you, a mind reader?"

"There are more ways to know what people are thinking then by reading their minds. You were scared, the situation was awkward-"

"What if I told you it was my first kiss? What if that was what made it so awkward. Because I had literally no idea what to do."

"There's more to it than that." She turned her head.

"I hate to break it to you but I think you're reading your signs wrong."

"What makes you say th-"

She didn't get to finish. Anna was on the bed beside her, their lips joined together, just as awkward as Anna assumed it would be. At first. But Ruby knew what to do, she understood this powerful form of affection, she let her tongue do the work as it slid between the two pairs of lips, as her hand stroked her cheek. The romance was there, whether Anna's gift was causing it or not, what Meg had told her to do had worked.

But as they toppled onto the mattress together, there was one thing Anna could not shake from her mind. She knew this was not just about her feelings towards Ruby. She wanted to get close to her, to find out the true nature of Tessa's nightmares.


	5. Chapter 5

Anna crouched in the nook of the four different branches, letting her hands dangle over the one last blossom left behind. It was Fall soon, this meant these trees would double over, as they came towards what looked like the end of their lives. The leaves would turn a fiery orange, or a brown, like her hair and fall to the ground in crunchy piles. And then, life would begin again.

What was it she loved so much about the trees, the flowers? They are full of life, they cannot feel the pain of human suffering which plagued the people locked up in her cell in the asylum, which still plagued Ruby to that day. More and more witches were being captured and rounded up by the hour, while here she was, brewing luck potions and trying to hear the voice of an olive tree. Ruby was right, she was a hippie. A hippie who could do absolutely nothing to save her sisters.

Ruby and her were a couple now, Meg had squealed with delight when she found out, the days in the garden may be lonely, but her nights were beautiful. But every second that she stared into her eyes, as they held hands and practised charms together, every second she studied by her side, she longed to know her secret. It had been on her mind since they got together in fact. Sometimes, she felt like Ruby was going to tell her, when the two of them were alone. But nothing was spilt from those lips. But she felt she needed to know this truth, not just for her own selfish desire to make people feel happier in their spirits, but she got the feeling it might just be able to save some more people besides herself.

Another three months and it would be the anniversary of when she first left her house. That meant nine months since she had been gone. God, it felt like so much longer. A lot of hardship for six, a lot of excitement came from the other three. She would be seventeen within another four.

"Anna, I know you're there, get down, Lilith wants to talk to us." She sensed the new presence in the back of her head before they even spoke.

"Hey, Meg," her voice carries its way throw the leaves before reaching the ground. "How did you know I was here?"

"You're always in that dumb tree, no camouflage is falling me."

Anna pulled her hand away from the bark of the tree so that it reverted to normal. She was now fully visible. She stuck her head around the cluster of branches. "I'll be there in a second." There was not a hope of her falling, she was too familiar with this olive tree by now, with its complex pattern, with how strong each branch was, though this did not concern her as she could simply make them thicker if one were to snap, before she could drop to the ground. She knew which spots collected the most sun, she knew how far below the ground the roots ended. She was a tree hugger at their best.

She clambered down, dents appearing in the wood by her own command, to which she could carefully place her feet in until she was on level ground once again. Meg was already disappearing back inside the building and Anna followed her.

Lilith had the other three girls, and the cook, a round woman with a set of charms like Anna's around her neck, and frizzy black hair, were all sitting around the table, Lilith investigating a map while Ruby scoured the Internet on a little laptop that had been set up.

"What's going on?"

"Hey, how long can you go in that tree?" Ruby asked her as she took her own seat. "We haven't seen you since breakfast. I'm quite jealous of how much love that tree's getting, actually. The feeling when your girlfriend loves something that isn't even alive more than you."

"Trees are alive."

"But they don't have hearts. They aren't capable of streaming together thoughts. Therefore, they aren't alive, period." She kissed Anna's cheek and slung her arm around her as Anna peered at the laptop screen. A photograph of a girl was there, zoomed in on, she had straight, light brown hair and a smiling, moon shaped face.

"Who's that?"

"Her name is Ava Wilson," Lilith said. "A witch."

"Yeah, a missing witch."

"A witch, nonetheless. When Tessa first learnt how to use her gift of scrying, I asked her to find some witches, ones who weren't in asylums."

This was the new latest thing. Lilith said, in the Summer, when you are able to go outside and have fun, that is when your abilities tend to develop. And so far, this had proven to be true. Since she had discovered her empathy, she had learned camouflage, just by touching a tree, she could blend in with it, lying in the grass could turn her green. Then there was Kali, who had learned the ability of strangulation, which she was obviously forbidden to lose. Meg had been practising with voice manipulation, she could imitate anyone without even having to transform into them, without having to have a sense of their DNA. Proudest and most celebrated of them all was from Tessa as she learned how to teleport, a gift she shared with Lilith although she still had not learnt to travel long distances yet, as Anna and Lilith had together on their first day. And then, less than a week later, she could use crystals to find people's locations, an art known as scrying. And, as always, nothing out of Ruby.

She had to be more powerful than she was letting on. It was almost certain. Meg had a power count of three, Tessa of the same though she was still claiming that she was a clairvoyant. Kali had three, Anna had three which could be split into four, depending on how precise you were. Lilith said this was average for their age and the average for all witches was eight, normally by the time they were twenty five. But if walking through walls was Ruby's fifth power and she had never shown it before she came here, how many more could she have?

"I managed to find two witches near us, Ava in Rhode Island and Lily Baker in New Jersey. Two witches who aren't in asylums. I didn't know if they'd been discovered yet."

"Both of them are eighteen and just finished their last year of high school. I'd been planning on visiting them, helping them if they were confused," Lilith began to explain." But then we found these."

Ruby zoomed out of Ava's photograph. It was a missing person's site, all the information listed below. The date she was listed as missing was one day before.

"It's the same with Lily, both went missing on the same day, roughly the same time. I was hoping we would have two new members of the coven. I should have gotten there sooner."

"It's not your fault, Lilith," Tessa said as she stared into the crystals assembled in her palm.

"Can you see them?"

"I'm trying. I can, uh, see Ava. I need to concentrate." She looked on, more carefully than before, and then broke away, gasping. "Ava's fine. She's in Wyoming."

"Wyoming? Why?"

"I don't know."

"And what about Lily?"

Ava took a deep breath. "Lily is dead."

* * *

 

Do you think they got caught? Do you think hunters got their first?"

"It's possible. But highly unlikely. I mean, with Lily, yes. It's strange that fully human, non-magical hunters could find her before us. But maybe they're developing. But there are no asylums in Wyoming, not in that area where Ava is, anyway. I don't know what to think."

They were traipsing their way upstairs, the meeting finishing minutes ago with each of them parting ways. Anna stared at Ruby. Tessa's nightmares were getting worse, you could tell without her even having to say anything, her obscure, yet believable dreams of chaos. She was tossing and turning at night, the next room down from Anna, she could hear the bed creaking beneath her, the moaning. This could have another explanation but Anna doubted that was likely, especially since Tessa would come downstairs looking weary and rubbing her red eyes each morning. If she was getting an answer from Ruby, it was here and now.

"Listen, Ruby." She took both of her hands, felt her pulse thudding away beneath her skin which is decorated with goosebumps. "Witches out there are dying. And being tortured. When I was locked up in that asylum, they used to bring us in clothes to scrub, they used to check how hard we were working when they came to see if our chains were still tight enough. And if we hadn't done enough, we got beaten. They had a plank of wood, they would hit us over the head, to them, it was funny, seeing the helpless little girls squirming. Which happened to almost every girl everyday, including myself. The silver drained their life away, they could barely put the clothes into the bucket in the first place, let alone rinse and dry them. It was a cruel trick. And they knew that. And you know what I had to do?"

"What?"

"Quick, come to my room." She dragged her along, they took two steps as a time, hurriedly, as they neared the doorway. They were sitting down on the floor before Anna spoke again. "I couldn't let them know I was different. I couldn't let them know the silver wasn't affecting me as much as it should have. So I made myself into one of the others, pretending I couldn't work, taking the beatings. I had too much on my mind anyway to be doing cleaning, like figuring out escape plans. Of course, I did draw attention to myself the first time I got away."

"How did you do it, then? That's one story you've never shared with me, princess."

She sighed and then laughed. "It's quite simple when you think about it. I waited by the door, dragging my chain across the path of the first person to open it. It opened outwards, you see. When a guard came in, I pulled it as tight as I could and he tripped over. Then I just took his keys and ran before he could get himself up again. I didn't make it far. That was when my beatings got serious. I knew they hated me and I knew they were interested in me."

She began to slide off her rings, untie her necklace, a sign that she was gettong ready for bed.

"After that, they started sending in less stupid as they said, guards to check our chains and they gave me third ones and fourth ones, chains around my arms so I could still move them and do their stupid work, but escaping, that was gonna be a lot trickier. The cells had no windows. They never gave us spoons to eat our meals with, only our hands, so there was no point trying to dig my way out, but I couldn't see how you can dig out of things with spoons anyway. The second two attempts, they never figured out how I did it. One time, a nail was stuck to one of their wooden hitting planks. It fell out, I managed to use it, I could dig around the chains until they were completely out of the wall, I could break the lock on the door with it. It was hard work, both times, and both times I got captured, it was only that third time that Lilith came to my rescue."

She lay back down on the bed, imagining all of the stars twinkling above the enchanted house. She wondered what it was like to live ten years ago, when witches hadn't been discovered yet, when everyone lived in peace. Ruby stroked her hair.

"Lilith came to my rescue, but only because I oculd do some of the work myself. And the only reason I could do the work myself is because I'm a nature witch, or a necromancer, or whatever I want to call myself. And if we have an army of, as you say, tree huggers, we're not gonna make much of an impact. I just can't let it happen out there, knowing all those people are so terribly hurt and there's nothing I can do about it."

"You need to calm down about this, Anna. Things change, people change. The world will one day be right again, the way it should be. That day's just not today."

"No, I know that. But it could be tomorrow. Things aren't gonna change unless people make a stand against it and we're the only free witches there are who actually know how to use their powers."

"Chill out." She began to laugh, getting caught halfway through as her voice cracked and she began to cough, and then Anna was mustering back giggles too, trying to bite her lip and ending up snorting so that she almost toppled forwards.

"What happened to you, Anna? You're acting all angry, brave I should say. But mainly angry."

"And what's funny about that?"

"Well, it's just-you're not the same girl I saw back then, you know, back when I was being a little bitchy to you."

"A little?"

"Hey," she bashed her knuckles, not too hard, against Anna's elbow.

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

"You sounded really pretentious there."

Anna placed her curled up hand on Ruby's shoulder, feeling the blades sticking out from her back. It was as far as she wanted to get, as far as she could get without it being awkward. But Ruby felt this and turned to face her.

"Uh, Ruby, do you want to, uh, kiss now?"

"And there's the Anna I knew. It's cute you think you need to ask."

Soon, she is cupping her face, she is tasting the energy (or lack of that) on Ruby's lips, her tongue is guiding its way through the maze of her slightly crooked, yet perfect teeth. Ruby's hand catches a large not of her hair, making her almost want to yelp with pain, but her partner figures out her mistake and untangles it while the two attracting opposites remain joined together, by forces both natural and not.

She curls up beside Ruby as they pull the sheet up over themselves. Ruby makes room for her, turning her body so she can slide in as a perfect shape, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with smooth edges. And finally, she breathes in air through her lungs. She is ready.

"Ruby, I need to ask you something."

"Remember what I told you. You don't need to ask if you want to make out with me. But there's only so much a girl can handle."

"No, it's not that. Ruby, I want you to tell me the truth. About you, about why you don't use your powers. I think I can help you."

"Lilith said all the same to me when I first arrived." She had that look in her eyes again, like a vulture about to swoop down on its prey, so threatening, warning her not to press on. But Anna is very good at pressing on.

"Well this time it's true," she said with all the confidence she could manage to force out through her mouth. "I have the power to understand people's energy and emotion and I know that something bad happened to you."

"Don't go pulling some sappy romance movie shit on me now. I suppose I probably owe you some of the truth." She let out a long sigh that seemed to last an eternity. "Who am I kidding? I thought I could go round not telling anyone, ever."

Was it her imagination or did Ruby move just an inch further away from her? Like she already understood her game and her entire plan.

"Here, watch this." She sat up in the bed, raised her hands and eyes to the ceiling, to the black chandelier. The crystals dangling from its sharp lines of metal began to swinging, clashing against each other.

"You're a telekinetic?"

"Uh huh." The chandelier stopped moving. "My first ability came when I was eight."

Anna's reaction is clearly the right one. As her jaw drops open, Ruby smiles, smugly, satisfied.

"I never knew my mom. She left me with my dad, literally minutes after I was born. He hated talking about her so I never asked. All I knew was her name was Tammi. He'd always known I was going to be a witch. Because that's what she was. An old witch, focused in dark magic. When I was eight, he found me floating around the ceiling. That was my first gift, levitation. He called me a freak, just like my mom. And I was scared, I wasn't sure what was happening. I never used my powers, not while he was around, but I learnt them, in my room on my own. About a year later, a neighbor caught me in the back garden, playing fetch with my dog. Except, I was lifting the stick with my mind."

Anna was busy, calculating in her head. Ruby was seventeen now, so this was eight years ago. Around the time witchcraft was discovered to be more than just some children's fantasy.

"She called the cops, they didn't believe her at first, but they'd had warnings of this already. I wasn't the first case to be discovered although I was one of them. They called in the professionals, my dad told them everything, I was taken away, like you except not to an asylum. They took me to a facility."

"A facility?"

"That was what they called it. Never knew the real name, never really got the chance to find out. There were two other girls there, they were around the age you are now. Both fully developed witches, ten powers each. What's considered powerful, above average. I was nine, I had five. They did tests on us."

Anna watched her as a single finger reached upwards and swept under her eye, her mascara was ever so slightly smudging.

"I could barely remember where I was, what my name was, what the time was. Sometimes weeks would go by without me knowing. I always had their strange drugs in my system, every time I was free, it felt like my bones had turned to stone. And each time, there were new scars on my body. They were cutting me open. I never knew why, if they were taking something out or putting something new in. Sometimes they observed me, while I practised using my abilities, they never cared when I cried and soon I knew not to. And when I was thirteen, I had twelve powers."

Twelve powers. The average was eight. And that was when witches were well into their twenties. So what did that make Ruby.

"Oh, Ruby-"

"Don't try and pity me," she spat. "Don't tell me you're sorry, don't tell me everything's okay now, 'cause it's not. The longer I stayed there, the less hope I had for our kind. They told me I was the most powerful witch they had ever seen, which by then was many as your lot, you normal witches were marching your asses down to the asylums. You thought you were the freaks. But I was the real freak."

Anna understood it now. Ruby was bitter, far from human, all that torture she had been put through. She could never have imagined anything like this had been the thing to take her energy from her. She wanted so desperately to comfort her, to try to silence her pain. Maybe if she used her power, maybe if she gave her intense happiness. She used all the strength she had.

She controls the Universe, she is the Queen, she does what she wants, everything obeys. But there is not enough happiness in Ruby to make any difference. So what did that mean she was to the damaged girl?

"When I was nearly fifteen, more than two years ago now, I realized it just didn't affect me anymore, I had given up any struggle against the liquid they pumped into my system. I was relenting, I was the opposite of you, that's what I admire so much, that you never give up trying. And I also noticed that this meant they were being less aggressive with me. And one day, they forgot to chain me to my bench at night. I walked straight out through the door. Literally, without even opening it."

"And?"

"And I found this place, found Lilith. I must have travelled through forests for hours, no one ever saw me much to my shock. I don't know how I knew to come here. There was just something in my mind, telling me. I think my mom must have left it, though I don't really know. You know, some idea of where to go if I was in trouble. It was probably way before you even knew you were a witch, sweetheart."

"So why did you never use your powers?"

"I just-" She shook her head. "I knew I couldn't. Now I was free, I still didn't feel like it. And that's it, I haven't seen any of them since."

Anna leaned in, close to her, taking her hand closer to Ruby's.

But then she couldn't because Ruby's body was shaking, spasming, rolling out of the bed, her eyes wide and her mouth struggling to form words.


	6. Chapter 6

"Lilith!" Anna began to cry, as she struggled to drag Ruby's limp body down the stairs. She was quivering now in her arms, her spine pulsating, like she was receiving an electric shock. She was gargling, saliva dripping from her tongue, her eyes unseeing and glazed over. Ruby is somewhere else while she goes through this seizure. That's what it seemed like to Anna. She used to have a little cousin with epilepsy, this was similar but more violent.

There was still a pulse, still beating up and down in her wrist, she was still breathing, unusually fast. Anna fumbled with the knob of the wooden kitchen door, weighed down by the girl she was carrying. She managed to burst through, she lay Ruby on the floor, making sure she was in a comfortable position, but not taking so much care that she was delayed too much. She began to rummage through the medicine cabinet, throwing out bottles, jars, she flicked the switch on the kettle and felt the temperature slowly rising beneath her fingers.

The first thing she came across in the underneath cabinet was a delicate, china mug, with pink and blue flowers painted carefully onto the fragile, curved surface. She was in the process of removing chamomile from its container, hopefully it would help with its calming properties, she was getting some chrysanthemum when the little door next to the stove burst open. The cook rushed in, frizzy hair huge, wearing a black dressing gown and fluffy slippers.

"Dear Lord," she cried. She must have come in because of the commotion. She took one look at Ruby, began to rearrange her so she lay on her back, was feeling her chest.

"Did you feed her anything, girl?"

"No, I-"

"Stupid girl, you don't wanna give her any of that tea, you want to kill her? She'll choke to death!"

Lilith was behind her now, clutching Anna's shoulders to hold her back.

"No wait, I can help her!"

"Anna, not now. Missouri's an expert in potions."

Missouri. That must be the name of the cook, the cook who she had never taken much notice of. Was she a witch, too?

She was thrusted into Meg's arms who hugged her around the waist, preventing her from getting any further.

"I-CAN-HELP HER!" She tugged against the firm grip on her elbows. Ruby was dying, she was going to die, twelve witchcraft abilities weren't going to save her now, unconscious, choking on her own tongue and spit.

"Anna." Tessa was there, standing straight behind both of them. Her voice was so calming. "Anna, it's alright." She pressed two fingers to her forehead, just after where her hair like fire ended to leave her skin, cold as ice and whiter than ever before, bare to the air.

"I need you to relax."

And that was the last thing she remembered.

* * *

 

"Is she going to die?"

"No, Tessa, her body's too strong. She's resisted everything. She's just unconscious."

Unconscious. Ruby. Dying. Ruby was dying. No, she wasn't. According to what the speaker had said.

"I always knew there was somethin' powerful 'bout that girl." A strong accent, maybe from Kansas or Oklahoma. The cook, Missouri, this was her speaking.

Anna blinked. Stars danced in front of her eyes, she felt at such a state of relief that second that she just wanted to stay there all day, wrapped in warmth, on the spongey surface she reclined on. But Ruby was sick.

"Guys?" she whispered. Her real voice was nothing more than a sour croak.

"Anna, here I've got you." Tessa. Tessa was lifting her, helping her to a sitting position, all eyes were on her, Lilith with a furrow in her brow, Kali fidgeting nervously, Meg seeming both concerned and expectant at the same time, Missouri with an unblinking stare. And Ruby, lying on the couh opposite, her arms splayed out at the sides and her legs tightly together.

"And Sleeping Beauty awakens. Didn't even need true love's kiss, did she?"Meg crossed her arms.

"How is she, how's Ruby? Is she-"

"Anna, calm down."

"What happened there. I mean, I was trying to save her-"

"You call that trying to save her?"

"Missouri, please. No need to be rude to her." Lilith's chest heaved as she spoke, leaving gaps between each word. "Anna, what you did there was very brave and in a normal situation, those herbs, so quickly, acting that way, she would be fine. But this is no normal situation."

"What?"

"Missouri has managed to get her stable. Tessa had to use a new use of her telepathy; to put you to rest."

Tessa grinned at her, held her thumbs up.

"But none of us are quite sure what happened. If we can do anything for her right now, we have to remain calm and here your account of what exactly happened. Well?"

Anna sighed, hanging her head low. She decided to skip their kissing, no one wanted to go into those details.

"We were-we were lying in bed and I asked her to tell me the truth about her. You know, about her powers, about where she comes from. And this time, she did. And I've been wanting to know for so long." She gave another sigh, knowing this truth has to come out. "I guess I knew it would do us good to really know who she is. And I thought the only way of finding out was by...getting close to her."

"Oh my God," Meg mouthed at her.

What she missed out was how not fake it had seemed, how maybe she had felt something for her, other than delight that they may be able to save witch kind, that it might be a boulder off her back to have opened up to someone about it.

"Anna, can you go on?"

"She told me she was taken by the hunters when she was nine. To a private facility. Because her powers, more powers than any of us students have at the moment, she had already developed. She had twelve by the time she was thirteen, when she was locked away in that center and they were dong tests and things on her. Lilith, how can a witch have twelve powers?"

This was greeted with a look of dismay, a look of guilt. "Continue with the story, then we discuss this."

"And she told me she escaped one day, arrived here. And when she told me everything, that was when the attack happened."

"Twelve powers." Lilith now seemed to consider this, you could almost hear wheels turning in her mind. Now fully recovered from her initial shock, she turned to each of them in turn.

"Then it's time I told you the truth. As you know, most witches have around eight, maybe seven, maybe nine, a few times I've met those who have ten, some of these being quite weak and uncontrollable. But only once have I met a witch who had anything close to Ruby. Everytime one of you develops a new ability, I tell you stories about witches I've known who shared that with you. But in truth, this was all one witch, who could lead armies of people drooling at the mouths at their beauty, who could scream with such a high pitch that glass shattered, who could use mind control. And that witch was my sister."

Lilith had a sister? This announcement was certainly surprising. Never had she seen a photo on the wall of her and another woman and there were already plenty of a younger Lilith alone. Never had she mentioned her, never joined in when the subject of Anna's many siblings came up.

"Her name was Abaddon. It was something of a family joke, name your daughters after demons since that's what people think they are. And now we're back to that stage of human evolution again. She was two years younger than me, yet everyone forgot me, the most powerful witch is the one who takes over, not the eldest like in Royal families or with typical inheritance. When I maybe had four or five, she already had eleven, she was fourteen by this point. Witches of this level of power are sometimes known as priestesses-"

Priestesses. Like a high priestess. That card Ruby had pulled during that stupid game of Tessa's, the one they had all just laughed about and called a con. She wondered, could tarot cards really predict the future.

"And eight years ago, they came for us. My parents had left, the house belonged to us. We had been teaching students for a while now. There were so many more, their parents would send them to us, they didn't have to go into hiding. Abaddon was twenty five, they came for her in the night. Not precisely for her, for our girls. We had never been in threat before, never bothered to put too much protection over the house. Abaddon was a good teacher, but at the same time, she could be violent, her power, it made her hungry for battle. She felt it was wasted on teaching. As the girls were being escorted away, she thought she could single handedly take them down. But she was wrong. They killed her, I never saw it happen but I heard her cries. I had been sleeping up until then. Abaddon had been completely outnumbered, there had been at least fifty of them, the students had no idea what to do in self defence. They hid the body, somewhere in the house They thought they had gotten all of us, little did they know they left the vice principal and cook behind."

"But didn't they come back? I mean, people know we live here, right? Didn't they return?"

"They sent two men to thoroughly search the house. I used my hypnosis on them, enough to get them to tell me everything, locations of the asylums, the guarding system, everything. I questioned them about my sister too. But all they had seen was her as a silver spear was pushed through her chest. They had no idea where she had been buried, even Queens of witches aren't invincible. And then, I sent them away, spent months making magical barriers. They told their fellow hunters the place was empty, if they ever saw it, or us, their mind would drift slowly by, we remained hiding. I hoped, I feared having anyone as powerful as my sister, had I had to watch them face the same fate. Sadly, that nightmare has come true."

And then, Anna realized why Lilith had gotten so angry with them all those weeks ago.

"You had some idea of where she was buried, didn't you?"

She nodded, sadly. "I shouldn't have underestimated you, I should've known you'd figure out sooner or later. Over the next few years, after Abaddon was gone, I started hearing noises in the attic. I only went up there in daylight, I made sure it was off limits to my students. But I should have guessed you would start asking questions at some point. I suppose it was Tessa's morbid curiousity that broke my rules in the first place."

"I told you!" Tessa rose with triumph, her teeth clenched together in a tight grin, her fist raised in the air. "I knew there were spirits."

"Good for you," Kali said in answer. She was trying to hold back some kind of temptation for something in her pockets. Anna guessed she was probably wishing she had a pack of cigarettes right now.

"So am I the only one without a tragic backstory?" Meg asked.

"Well I don't-"

"Are we forgetting what we should be doing?" Anna yelled, over all of them, over their pointless debate. "We're supposed to be finding out what's wrong with Ruby."

"That's a lot coming from the girl who used her." The words were like acid on Kali's thin lips. Each syllable was like a slap in the face, like the one time her father had hit her, the day he left the house, when he promised he would never hurt her again. What a lie that had been.

"Anna is right," Lilith agreed. "None of your powers can go quite to this level, none of you are healers-"

"Because it's a rare ability, yeah, you've told us."

"But Tessa, I need you to try your hardest to look inside her, to find the source of the problem. I know this will be a strain on you, but-"

"It's okay. I think I can do it." Tessa shuffled her way over to Ruby. Ruby's life could lie in her hands, the claimed clairvoyant, the one who had set violent spirits on them, the one who had taken Anna away from Ruby. But why was Anna feeling like this, so angry right now. Kali was right, she was meant to have been the one who used Ruby, for what seemed like a good cause, but it didn't matter because it had still been a cruel, painful lie. She could only imagine how Ruby would react when she woke up. If she woke up.

The girl with the black hair now pressed her palms flat on Ruby's forehead, Anna felt her channelling her energy into her, she sensed the waves travel through the air, from conscious skin to unconscious skin.

For those few minutes, no more than five, they all waited as the process continued, as no movement was shown from either of the pair of them. And then, Tessa gasped, broke away. She was panting, sweat was pouring from the glands on her face, her eyes were strained and tired, like she had not had a wink of sleep all night. And she would not have, not more than an hour before the disturbance took place.

Anna took her hand, helped her down onto the couch beside her, Missouri was offering her a glass of water, the contents of which seemed to have been pulled out of nowhere.

"It's what they did to her," Tessa said when she had caught her breath.

"What? what who did to her?"

"Her capturers, I don't know, the hunters. They've wired up her body. There are transmitters, connected directly to her brain. I'm surprised she's not dead. If she used her powers, a signal would go off inside her, it would tell them where she was."

"So that's why she never used them. Until-"

"Oh shit!" Meg said at the top of her voice. Lilith gave her a death glare.

"Watch your language."

"Sorry. It's just...she showed you her powers, didn't she, Anna?"

Anna nodded. "It was the night of the party-"

"What party?" Now Lilith was the one gleaming with excitement.

"Look, it doesn't matter right now, but-"

"Meg took you guys to a party, didn't she?" Tessa asked. "It's so unfair, why didn't you invite me?"

"Because you're a terrible liar."

"Girls, why don't you argue later. Have none of you noticed the crisis that's before us, we could have hunters stormin' the house any minute!" shouted Missouri. "You really think who likes who is important right now? Your kind is in danger and fighting each other ain't gonna save your sorry asses. No, you gotta remember who the real enemy is here!"

"Right," Anna said, once they were all back to being hunched over in their seating positions, too embarrassed to look up at their cook who had only been a minor character in their lives until tonight. "So we were at this party, just down the street. There were hunters guarding the house, there was no way out. And Ruby walked straight through the wall. Like literally, through the wall. Like a ghost."

"One use of her power wouldn't have been enough to properly activate the tracking device. It could have been seen as a fluke."

"Yeah, and tonight, she showed me her telekinesis. She made the chandelier swing in the bedroom."

"That's very romantic," Meg commented.

"So what, did she know? About the tracking device, I mean?" asked Anna.

"It's possible she knew subconsciously. Because, if she had known, if it had been at the front of her mind, she wouldn't have risked anything. She was the perfect spy. The perfect witch killing machine. They set her free on purpose, to find our location and expose us. To give away her secrets. But she defended herself."

"And now they're coming from us." She turned to look at Tessa. "So can you take X-rays of people now?"

"Sorta. I guess that's what it was like. I saw her mind, I saw her the inside of her body, both natural and artificial."

"So why did you never try this before? To find out where she came from. Why did you never read her mind?"

"I tried. She always blocked me. She had a wall up inside her brain."

"She really is the most powerful witch I've ever heard of."

"There's silver in her blood stream. A lot of it, too. It was flowing from her heart, Cook managed to deactivate it, but there's no way of getting rid of it. It was supposed to be released if she ver gave any information away about this facility."

"They would be killing their double agent," Lilith concluded. "It truly is remarkable, she managed to sustain herself, even under the influence of poison."

"So what, she'll wake up when we get the silver out of her?"

"I think that is the case."

"Well then let's get going."

* * *

 

The process of removing the liquidated metal from the girl's blood vessels was a lot more difficult then they made it out to be. Missouri made them all leave the room, setting them to work, bringing her the items she would need in the healing.

"Does she have healing powers?" Anna asked Lilith as she was sent to the kitchen to grab some basil and sandalwood for cleansing, and some roots of elder which were claimed to be used as a diuretic. Anna crushed as she waited for a reply, carefully chopping the leaves into the smallest of soft, green pieces and then flattening them beneath the shining blade of the knife.

"No. Missouri was taken on here later than most, by my grandparents towards the end of their lives. This was because she was kept with her parents for some extra years, they had been training her in the arts of voodoo to become a witch doctor since before she was a teenager."

"Voodoo? That's a thing?" Meg was carefully removing a mini cauldron from one of the cupboards, turning on the gas cooker to warm it up. "So what, she's like evil?"

"Yes, voodoo exists. But not in the way you're thinking. To some extent, voodoo can be used in dark rituals, as can our own magic. But mainly it is a very similar style of magic to our own, originating in Africa instead of Europe, where some of Missouri's family originated from. So in a way, she dabbles in medicinal magic. But she is not a true healer. In fact, she is a very talented hydrokinetic."

Anna watched through the crack in the door, as Missouri leaned over the body. Was she really still alive in there? At first sight, she appeared to be a corpse, just another empty shell to bury, with those blind, milky eyes, her skin already seeming to peel away.

Missouri was prodding her, her neck, her chest, down her ribs. As her hands veered to the left, she nodded in satisfaction and took out a knife, slashing it across Ruby's lower abdomen.

Anna flinched, but blood was flowing, down into Meg's cauldron. This was a good sign. Blood doesn't flow if nothing is there to pump it. The mixture shone silver, not red. This was at first. But slowly, it seemed to become purer, a deep scarlett, until Missouri was sealing off the wound with some seaweed paste, leaving just a green spot on her stomach. Already, Ruby's chest was rising higher, as she inhaled in and then exhaled. Missouri really knew what she was doing.

By one in the morning, the witch doctor woman was feeding her the roots Anna had prepared, mixed up together in a foamy broth. The white surface clung to the goblet as it was poured down the witch, the priestess' as she should now say, throat. She was no longer choking, no longer struggling for breath, the silver was slowly edging its way out of her system. And what Anna now could feel in her mind was relief.

For the next hour, she helped ward the house, ward it from their unescapable fate. She scrawled the symbol for Venus with her atmen knife into her circular piece of copper, though she wasn't sure it would be of much help since today was Saturday. The day Lilith was born, not her. At least one of them would have good luck from their planet.

She copied symbols from older books, not the spellbooks on urban witchcraft and how to incorporate it into the modern home, not the history of witchcraft in North America, but the older books, with fancy lettering which had not been typed up on a computer but scratched with a real bird's feather, made hollow and dipped into viscous ink. Books that had been written by the old witches, back before they all moved to American in the seventeenth century, back when her country was undiscovered by white woman. Its age was obvious from the cracked spine, the yellowing pages that stuck together, that she had to turn ever so carefully to stop them tearing, she was sure some were even missing.

Lilith was out chanting under her breath in the front garden. If anyone had seen her, they would have thought she were some weirdo, with her strange Latin mumbling. But thankfully, no one cared about their house. None of these passersby were looking for it. But soon, some people would be.

And then, at precisely two thirty in the morning, there were shouts of "She's awake." And then, they were all rushing into the sitting room, where Ruby was sitting up on the sofa, lips standing out strawberry red against her face, a bruise on her cheek, probably from being carried down the stares, drinking a mug of what just from scent, Anna picked up to be a fruit tea.

"Thanks," she said to Missouri. "A little whisky now would be great thanks."

"And have you becoming intoxicated, girl? I don't think so. You'll stick to my cherry tea if ya know what's good for ya."

Anna ran towards her. "Ruby," she cried.

But Ruby held up a hand, suddenly regaining her posture as she approached, coming up from her slouched position.

"Stop. I heard it. I heard everything."

* * *

 

Anna cut more than half the plant away, watching the branches, the leaves, flutter to the floor, already slowly dying from being taken away from that thing they were apart of, turning half a shade browner every slow minute. Their water source was gone. And soon they would be too.

This was it. She got what she wanted. She discovered who Ruby was, some great priestess, a witch with more abilities and strength than she could ever strive to have. And in the scheme of things, she had taken down the coven. Wonderful for her, she was saving the day. Ruby wasn't talking to her, again, and this time with good reason. Anna had lied to her, said she cared about her, pretended to like her, and all just to sacrifice all seven witches who dwelled here. The same fate that poor Lily Baker girl ended up with. The same fate as Lilith's sister, Abaddon.

She was no longer having to keep up the act, the act of being a fake, of convincing everyone that she loved Ruby. So why did she feel like something was missing from her?

Her heart had stopped as her lips brushed against Ruby's, her pupils dilated, seeing stars, as their skin came into contact, as she held her hand. But no, she had just been focing herself to feel like this, to make herself seem more genuine, in the relationship.

She was undoing the mess she had made. That was a lesson she had to learn. Undo whatever mess you can. Her friends, Tessa, Kali, Meg, they were doomed, and she was going to protect them in any way she could. Forget feuds. It was as Missouri had said, remember who the enemy is.

She felt a new stem of the plant curving it's way along the lines in her hand, faster, faster, the roots thickening, thorns bursting their way through its green surface. A plant that didn't even have thorns. She was turning nature into a weapon.

A knock straight on the door made her jump, the plant drooping over as she drew herself away from it. She got up to answer it, but already, Lilith was making her way in, shrugging on a black cardigan. She had changed outfit. Gone was her black gown she wore to sleep in, Anna would have expected her to put on one of her pencil skirts but she wore slim fitting leggings. Ready to fight.

"Anna, please may I have a word?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." So she followed her out of the door, leaving the plant to shrivel up, the thorns to go away and it to become a harmless, leafless thing, sitting in a pot again.

She was dragged off down the hallway, by her sleeve, her hair whipping behind her.

"Um, Lilith..." She had a right to be worried. They were standing straight outside Ruby's door. This time, Lilith didn't even bother to knock, they burst straight in. Ruby was sitting up at her desk, considerably healthier. She was clutching something in her hand and just had time to drop it before she spun around, to face them.

"Lilith, what is this? I don't want to talk to her."

"Ruby, you must forgive Anna. Times like these are dangerous to feel such fury, to be ignoring each other."

"I don't care," said Ruby. "And you certainly didn't." She narrowed her eyes as she looked directly at Anna.

"It's okay. I did something stupid. Lilith, enough with this. We can still fight. We don't have to be the best of friends to do that." She glanced nervously at Ruby. "Or any type of friends at all.

"You know, you have a lot of nerve, coming anywhere near me. I really underestimated you. You seem like some sweet little virginal Catholic school girl, but you're worse than me. And that's really saying something."

Anna remembered old Ruby. Frosty, towards everyone. Making fun of Kali's nose, yelling at Tessa for absolutely no reason, being rude to the woman who had rescued her.

Anna was no turning around, ready to leave.

"Wait, wait, wait." Lilith was desperate, she was panting in her attempt to keep them in the room together. "Ruby, what you must understand is Anna draws energy from other people's quality of life, both spiritual and physical. And she felt the only way to raise your spiritual quality of life was to make you open up to someone. I know she had you under a verisimilitude-"

"What the fuck is a verisi-whatever?" Ruby asked.

"Wait a second, Lilith doesn't talk like that. Meg."

"Alright, alright," said the person who looked like Lilith, and sounded like Lilith though her vocabulary was a little over the top. "Sorry, I just...you two made a really cute couple. And though Anna says it was fake, it sure didn't look fake to me."

"Yeah, well she had everyone fooled."

"Ruby, you know she came to me, asking for help in how to get the two of you together. What she told me, she may have told herself it was all an illusion, but trust me, it wasn't. I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you here. My first relationship, I was fourteen, it was right before I came here. And since then, I've had three more proper relationships, ones that lasted more than a week, I mean. I've slept with two of them. I've flirted with countless drunks, and teenagers who just want to party. I've seen romance at its best, and at its worst. I've seen virgins desperate to lose their V-cards to impress their friends, frat boys who've already lost their V-cards, but want to sleep around a little more so they can be deemed players by their mainly white, straight male friends. I've seen girls who are just discovering themselves, girls experimenting. All genders who just want a person who truly understands them. And you two did understand each other."

"No, we...we didn't," Anna denied.

"Shit, as if lying to everyone else wasn't bad enough, now you're lying to yourself. This was both of you's first real relationship, right?"

Anna decided that Jonathan Parker, the boy she had been engaged to in first grade, didn't count as a real relationship.

"And it was good for both of you, someone who truly needed you. Ruby, you found a fierce little girl who could bring happiness in the worst of places, who never gave up. Anna, you found this strong, confident witch who had nothing more to give. You needed each other, together, your powers, you could be unstoppable. Anna, you're good with emotions, you know I'm right. And Ruby, you're trying to break the connection between the two of you, but you still care."

Anna pondered. Meg was an expert, she knew. And Anna remembered how it had felt as she kissed Ruby, the first time at the party, the second time in her bedroom, the third time, the fourth time. She remembered how distraught she had been when she thought she was dying. Ruby needed her. And maybe she needed her just a bit too.

"Who am I kidding, Anna? I _do_ need you, to get through all of this." She had stolen the words right out of her mouth.

Not-Lilith was grinning from ear to ear. "Meg's therapy slash dating service saves the day again."

Ruby drew Anna into a hug and then peered over her shoulder. Anna felt, sensed her smiling. "All this sounds really funny coming out of Lilith's mouth.

"Sorry." And then Lilith became Meg again "Still, it's pretty cool being in charge of the place. I just told Tessa to go and put on some pizzas for us and she did exactly what I said."

"What I want to know is where you got that verisimili-something word from?"

"That's the kind of fancy thing Lilith says, right? I looked up complicated words online, right before coming to see you."

And then, came the ringing of the doorbell.

"Do you think-" Ruby shivered. "-that's them? The hunters? Because I'm in no way ready for this battle."

The three of them left the room, quickening their pace as they went to peer over the bannisters. And already, a newly wakened Lilith from the sleep she had been in until Meg left her form, was now, making her way, rather cautiously, out of the sitting room and staring at the mini picture that was projected from the camera in the front of their gates, to a device hanging on the wall, next to the door.

Anna craned her neck, but could still not see who their visitor was.

"Do attackers knock?" she whispered to Ruby.

"Not from what I've seen. It must be some kind of trap."

But Lilith was buzzing the guests in, turning to face them with her eagle eyes, spotting them hanging over the bannisters.

"Meg Masters, would you like to explain why I woke up on the sofa and you are wearing some of my clothes."

Meg quickly tore the cardigan away. "No reason."

Lilith then looked between the other two girls, at how close their proxemics were, almost touching. "I see you two have made up." And then she turned away with the hint of a smile. Clearly, Meg was not the only one who thought they were a cute couple.

And then a group of women stepped through the door. The first of them was dressed elegantly, a navy blue bodice, a velvet skirt with a slit at the bottom to let her freckled legs slip through. Eyes, rotated to the side and crinkled at the edges, sharp lips and ginger hair. This woman, who must have been a little older than Lilith was followed by a line of teenage girls, all from sixteen up to their early twenties, faces stained with soot and decorated with scratches, but still managing to look glamorous.

"So you're this Lilith I've heard of," said their leader. Her accent was scottish, only mildly, probably from years of being in the States, but still clear enough for her to make it out. "Tell me, have you only got three measly girls in your coven?"

"Um..." Anna had never seen Lilith look so nervous before, be spoken like this to anyone. "No, there are two more of us. And our cook, she's a witch."

"Mmmm." The red headed witch nodded, unimpressed, and held out her hand. "The name's Rowena Macleod, I'm the leader of the witch coven in Wyoming."

"You mean there are others of us?" Anna asked as she took a seat on one of the bottom stairs. She had heard something about Wyoming recently. If only she could remember. She scanned the crowd, examining each and every girl. There was a girl with dark brown hair in a fringe over her clear blue eyes and cheekbones that jutted out, a blonde girl whose hair had been cut short, to what people would consider 'boy length', an older girl with very big eyes and thin eyebrows. And among them, a girl with mousey hair, about eighteen or nineteen, a round face and black T-shirt.

"I know you. You're Ava Wilson." She didn't mean to speak aloud, but Ava raised her head, the two of them staring at each other.

"Yeah," she said. "Should I know you, too. Because I hate to tell you, sister, I've never seen your face before."

"You were the witch who went missing," Lilith explained for her. "We'd been hoping to welcome you into our coven, but-"

"I got there first." Rowena clearly had more girls than them, the young witches crowded the entire entranceway. Anna counted twelve, including Rowena herself.

"So why did you come to us? If you're so much better," Ruby asked, not disguising her spite.

"Why did I come to you? Well, maybe because our school was burned down. One of our students died, as well. Our oldest as well. Poor girl, twenty four, would be dead now if she were in one of those asylums. Hunters seem to like killing the older class of witches, seeing as they can't control them from that age, seeing as they all begin to fade away with their abilities gone, with what makes them who they are."

Anna realized with a jolt that this was why the hunters told them that all witches died at the age of twenty five. Because, if what Rowena said was true, they could no longer be forced into being slaves to them, they were too far gone, the silver would hae truly drained them away by that point.

"Poor thing, been with us since she was eighteen and never showed us a single thing she could do. Until a day before the fire. We learned she was a teleporter, among other things. It seemed the fire didn't kill her, but from what we could see, blood poisoning."

Blood poisoning. Meg and Ruby both turn to look at her because all of them have realized what is going on.

"Lilith," Anna said. "It sounds like, the hunters burned down their school. Because they had a spy in there, a spy like Ruby. Ruby, you said there were two other girls there with you."

"Yeah. Twenty four, that sounds about right for how old they would be right now. And the other one, oh my God."

"She must have been the one who killed Lily Baker. Or at least led the hunters to her."Anna panicked. "So what now, are they going to burn down our house too?"

The girls from Rowena's school were looking at them with confusion, jumpy. Some of them were clinging onto each other for they had got the gist of what was happening, others were looking from left to right.

"They won't if we can stop them. Because we're ready for them. And now we have-" Ruby began to count. "-Sixteen witches. I'm sure we'll be outnumbered, but they don't have the power of a full scale priestess, now do they?"

* * *

 

Ruby draped the protection necklace over Anna's head, helping her to smooth back her hair into a ponytail. The others were helping the girls from Rowena's school move into their bedrooms. It had been hours since they arrived, hours of more protection symbols, warding, forcefields over the house, though they wouldn't hold forever, the girls building whatever weapons they could. Preparing for either victory or the agony of defeat.

 "You really gave me something, you know that, honey?"

"Honey? That's what you're going to call me?"

"I'm running out of nicknames. Tree huggers getting a little old. Just go with it for now. But, a month ago, I would have said there was no point, we were going to all end up dead. And now, thanks to your influence, I think we should give them Hell."

She held both of her hands and Anna stared deep down into her eyes.

"I don't think you understand what this represents. We may just be fighting hunters, hunters who want to destroy our kind. But this is a total fuck you in the face of society. For stereotypes, for what witches are supposed to mean to normal humans. There are four types of women, men see. Take you, me, Meg and Lilith. There's the mother, Lilith, the virgin, that's you, the slut, Meg, and me, the bitch."

"I'm pretty sure you're a virgin too."

"That's the point. There aren't specific positions for people. It's a spectrum. People can have a label and still have attributes to other labels, that's the way the world works. The mother can be athletic and stubborn sometimes, she doesn't always know what's best. The virgin can be strong and fearless and reckless. The slut, well it doesn't matter how many people she's slept with, she can still make the right choices. And the bitch-"

"She can have feelings and emotions."

"Exactly. There's no good and bad, right and wrong, witches aren't all evil, there's more to the world than what meets the eye. There's more to people than other people know."

"And this is a pretty amazing battle cry." She put her hand on Ruby's back.

"If I don't make it through tonight," Ruby says. "I want you to carry on, to be alright, I don't want you to let this affect you too hard, you understand me."

Anna agreed without really taking to heed what Ruby was saying. She wasn't going to die. She was the most powerful of them all. She forced her energy into her girlfriend.

"There. I just gave you intense confidence. You'd better use that wisely."

"Shut up." She jabbed her on the arm. "Right, we'd better get ready. Are you coming?"

"One second, you go on ahead." So as Ruby left her alone, she went over to her desk, curious to see what she had been looking at earlier. She had the stack of tarot cards, in a messy pile next to an open book about herbs. All of them were turned face down. Except for one card which seemed to dance in front of her, taunting, grinning maliciously. Death.

Running away, she found Ruby in the hall and she relaxed. Forget about the card, that was all she had to do.

No one could do anything independently. Everyone needed somebody. And this someone for her, was the coven, there to stand by her, just as she stood by them. They were united, a force to fight together, to defeat everything that stood in their way. She actually had hope that the sixteen of them would win the battle.

"Ruby, before we, you know, fight tonight, I have one question."

"Well, ask away."

"It's something I've always wanted to know. Why do witches wear black?"

"Oh." She began to chuckle. "It's something to do with religious symbolism. Priests wear it as well. Apparently, it helps with out spirituality, it draws in energy, helps us to tap into the Universe."

"Okay, that actually makes sense."

And then the clock struck midnight.


	7. Chapter 7

The chiming of the old grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs, reverbrated throughout the house, once, then twice, stopping only after twelve. It was Sunday. None of them were born on a Sunday, well at least, none of the original members of this coven.

Anna told herself not to worry about that rubbish Bela had said, how the charms only protect you on your own day of the week.

"If we're going to win this battle, it's going to be from our own skill and power," she whispered to herself.

Kali was at her side, a ball of fire at the ready in her hand, sparks flying into the air above them. Rowena lurked by the banisters on the other side of the hallway, she knew witches were hiding throughout the house, Tessa stationed in the front garden, giving signals. Anna heard a screech inside her head, like feedback when a microphone is not working properly, and then Tessa's voice.

_They're here._

It was Anna's turn to position herself outdoors. She excelled in nature after all. She nodded to the others, those visible to her, warning them non-verbally to stay put, went through the door to stand on the lawn. And that was when she saw them, men, a few women as well, at least fifty in total of them, outnumbering the witches greatly. They wore tight uniforms which consisted of the same black shirts she had seen the hunters at the party wearing, though more adapted for action, carrying guns, which she assumed were filled with silver bullets, over their thickset shoulders, they held sharp silver knives, she caught the gleam within their belts, they had spears and swords and all these weapons she had thought had gone out of use centuries ago. And each of them had that face that revealed to her none of them were to be messed with. And yet, that was exactly what she was going to do.

Some of them were struggling to pick open the lock on the gates. Good luck with that, she thought. Others, those smarter, less patient, were hacking at the iron railings with their weapons which she thought they should have been saving. And around ten of them were clambering  over, struggling to find foot holds, trying to life their own weight but sliding back down due to the water that had been slicked over the metal, not by rain but by Missouri.

Anna spotted Tessa, crouching by the window sill, staring into blank space, awaiting their attack. She moved towards her, their gazes meeting.

"Anna."

"Tessa, I need you to go inside, collect up whatever you can. Maybe try to figure out what to do with that copper skull of Bela's. I'll take it from here. I'll buy us some time."

Tessa vanished into thin air, probably reappearing somewhere within the house, Anna felt for her useless charm beneath her sweater. What she was about to do now would make no impact, they would still get in somehow, just be a little delayed. Maybe some of them would give up and go home, but there was no chance every single hunter would leave.

She conjured the vines that had tangled themselves around the base of the great gate, so that they began to slide upwards, like vipers coiling themselves up the metal poles. They dislodged a few of their hands, so that some clung on for dear life, others were knocked to the hard concrete. She winced, but she had no time for compassion.

The roots of the oak trees that stood on either side of the entrance to their lair, burst from the ground as the trunk they were connected to became thicker, as more and more branches shot out of it, curling themselves around branches of other trees. Thorns split through their sides, they no longer bore acorns, nor leaves, she was creating a sharp maze just from a few harmless plants, like in Sleeping Beauty, which she remembered from her childhood before all adaptations of the book and movie had been removed from the household.

She took a step back, nodding at her work, happy with what she had done. She wished she could have watched them trying to make their way through the labyrinth of her own creation. No time for that now. She had to prepare.

Inside, everything was almost as silent as when she had left, the only one speaking and moving around being Tessa, as she bossed everyone into place. Kali had been given the skull, it rested in her lap and, with sharp nails, she clung to it, letting them dig into the rouch copper. Her eyes were glowing gold.

"Kali, what are you doing?"

"Nothing, just a little hunch I have. I think with this skull, I might be able to harness my own powers, maybe it can increase the frequency of my scream, causing more damage."

She gave Kali a thumbs up, the only reassurance she had right now. A girl of about her age with frizzy, caramel colored hair and another extremely pretty girl with dyed blonde hair were pulling on two ends of a thin string, like this was an ambush made by ten year olds as part of a prank.

She carefully stepped over them, making sure not to put their hard work into disarray, and made her way to stand beside her telepathic friend.

"I built a wall of thorns outside the house," she explained to her. "It should hold them back for an hour or so, along with the enchantments. Then, they're in and there's nothing we can do about it."

"What, are you wishing we could have done better?"

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"We're doing the best we can. That fire was a miracle, I guess in some ways. If the other coven hadn't arrived here, we'd be completely outmatches, five girls who've never been in a fight and two retired old witches."

"I'm the one who made the hunters come here in the first place. That fire, it was just a stroke of good luck."

"You sound just Ruby. Have you two switches bodies or something? You've lost all confidence in yourself."

"No, it's just that what I did was bad and I know everyone's forgiving me because 'I need her' and all, but nothing's gonna make up for this." She'd given them all a death sentence.

"At least we discovered about Ruby's powers. Hunters would have found out about us and come for us sooner or later. And now we have a priestess on our side."

"One priestess isn't going to be enough." She scratched her head. "Hold on."

"What? What is it?"

"One priestess isn't enough."

"So what?"

"We may not have a second priestess now, but we have a clairvoyant and a...necromancer."

"So now you choose to believe the truth about me? As I said, we're not priestesses, there's a big difference."

She took a few steps forward. "A clairvoyant, who can hear dead people, a necromancer who can bring things back to life. A powerful, dead witch hidden somewhere in the house."

* * *

 

"So have you ever done it with a real person? Brought them back to life, I mean?"

"No, a tree maybe. But the only real living thing as Ruby would put it, I've ever brought back is that turkey. God, that seems so long ago." She pushed open the trapdoor to the attic and climbed up onto the rotting wooden floor, pulling Tessa up the ladder, after her.

She coughed as they both landed in the dust, their eyesight robbed from them by the dark.

"Dammit. We should have brought a torch."

"Or Kali."

"Kali has fire, strangulation and can shatter glass. I think she's better for combat."

"You seemed like you were pretty stressed earlier there, Anna. But you're handling leading the battle pretty well."

She blushed. "Thanks. Right, we'd better make the best of this. Can you hear anything?"

"Some whispering. There's definitely someone in here."

Anna was not sure if she was making this up or not. It was too dark to see the other girl, her features hidden away in the murky air. Everything was eerie, like something could sneak up on her at any moment. The turmoil of the fight preparation had was hidden away, like they were in an entirely new world.

As she held out her hands to get herself back up, an azure light formed right in front of where she assumed her outstretched fingertips were, like a flower or one of those glowing lanterns that rise into the night's sky on New Years Eve, except blue, illuminating the way.

"What was that?"

"I think I just discovered a new power."

As they followed these blue orbs, Tessa continued to hold her hands to her head, listening for the voice.

"Getting louder," she said, and then "she's over here." She began to drag a little cardboard box along the wooden floor so that is scraped it, making a horrible scratching noise, almost as bad as nails on a chalkboard. Their was a pattern of three or four floorboards below, one standing out strangely more than the others and as Tessa pressed it, it wobbled.

"It's loose." Without another word, she began to fiddle, the piece of floor slowly edging out of place until she tossed it aside and a small space, filled with cobwebs, was revealed below.

Anna immediately covered her nose.

"That's gross," Tessa said, matter-of-factly and then moved aside so Anna could take a closer look. She could quite clearly see that she was correct. An acrid, punjent stench had filled the air, working its way into Anna's nose. At a closer examination, she saw ants, crawling up and down the open space, flies which buzzed around, with their newfound escape route, whizzing past her to freedom, one button black beetle with antenna that twitch as she stared down at it, and then moved on a few more steps.

And in the midst of them all, a pile of bones, not pure white like the ones dogs eat in cartoons, mouldy, brown, just the thinnest layer of tightly stretched skin pulled around each of them. Anna had never seen a corpse, only in museums in which these were millenia old ancient Egyptians and separated from her by a layer of glass. These remains were relatively new, less than a decade and a clump of red hair, almost the same shade as her own, clung onto the broken skull, the last refuge of a young woman.

"This is her."

So, holding her nose, with Tessa's help, she removed the broken skeleton, assembling it how it would have been instead of like some piece of Picasso artwork, with the head where the ribs should be. She hoped that the wrist bones was not quite touching the lower arm bone would make no difference to how capable Abaddon would be at fighting when resurrected.

"Alright, ready?" Praying to God that it would work, she summoned up that little bit of strength, of knowledge Ruby had passed onto her, and forced the woman to live again.

Smoke clouded their eyes, that not even the glowing blue lamps floating above them could clear. Anna covered her face with her elbow, just making out the silhouette of a figure rising. And then, they could see again.

Before them was a woman, significantly taller than the two teenagers, hair in messy red locks, lips spread in what could only be described as an angry smile, completely nude, her body all curves and long legs. Her skin was fresh like that of a new born baby after just beng grown back, and Anna had to tear her eyes away as she stood proud and tall. She truly was regal.

She shook her head for a minute, in a wave of confusion and then took a step towards them, as proud as ever.

She spoke with a voice that was both commanding and majestic, Anna wondered in what way this woman, this red headed, tall woman, could possibly have been related to the Lilith they had grown to love.

"Take me to my sister."

* * *

 

Returning downstairs was pure chaos. It was the Hell Ruby had spoken of, broken loose. Their entrance hallway was manifested with the hunters, obviously through her barriers, their guns out, firing at everyone who dared cross their path which seemed to consist of every space in the room with how fast they were moving.

They had migrated to Tessa’s bedroom which she now shared with three of Rowena’s witches, their bags had been laid out in their own areas but not packed. No time for that when the battle was commencing.

Abaddon was not confused. She new where she was, she knew she was in her own house or at least, what had been her house many years ago. She knew she had been dead, she knew she had been resurrected from what Anna had heard, she had never asked either of their names, only referring to them as the clairvoyant and the necromancer. Certainly suitable titles.

Anna didn’t like her attitude. She acted like a Queen, tossing that torrent of hair back, walking with long strides and her chest puffed out, not even daring to keep silent in case any of the hunters had broken past their bombardment and reached the second floor of the house.

She also didn’t dare as what it was like to be dead, how she had died, how it had felt as the blade pierced her heart (for what other method could they have used to kill her?). Was it hard to cling onto the Earth as she was dragged off to that other place? Had she been given an option? Was their even another place or just a dark abyss, just a cliff to hang onto above it? She would reserve all these questions for later, much later, when it came her turn to go, too, be that that night or decades into the future. She would let experience answer for her.

The sound of the fight raging on boomed from down the stairs as they both turned their backs while Abaddon slipped on a set of black jeans and a button up shirt. She was hardly conscious about her body, still they felt not peering at her was the polite thing to do.

And then they joined their sisters. Anna was glowing with energy though her facial expression may not show it. She had done it. Brought back a human, a real life human, a witch nonetheless. Powerful, almost an equal match for her girlfriend. But Ruby was busy, waging her wrath on a blonde haired man. The same man from the house down the street, the man who Meg had impersonated. As he fired at her, the bullets darted out of the way, never quite hitting home, due to Ruby’s arms which waved around in the air, directing the silver elsewhere.

Meg stood on the ceiling, fast reflexes defending her body from thrusts from the blonde haired woman, one of the few female hunters’, spear. Ava was drawing smoke from under the floorboards, a deep black smoke that seemed filled with dust, shattered glass and other discarded objects that Anna couldn’t place, all of them a blur as the soldiers became immersed in the clouds. Rowena and Lilith fought next to each other, taking on a group of maybe five or six of them, their differences aside as the Scottish witch curled and uncurled her wrist and two of them were choking, coughing up spit and a strange pink goo. Lilith was clutching another by his shirt, questioning him and she could see him staring into her eyes, answering each of their questions.

But their side were far from winning. She could make out Kali in the midst of everything, the red of her flaming hands standing out against black, shooting fireballs from one of her hands while the other made a choking gesture and she could see a man clutching his throat. But you can only have so many hands. Missouri’s slow running was costing her dearly, she was completely surrounded, no escape for her.

“I’m going in,” Tessa whispered.

“You?”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Well, no offence but you’re not the best at fighting.”

Anna didn't get to properly finish, giving her this piece of constructive criticism and telling her to maybe oversee the battle, reassuring the fighters mentally, from the safety of her room, for suddenly, an overwhelming pain invaded her forehead, drawing her palm directly to it like a magnet so that she could clasp the spot the agony originated from. All she could hear was voices, screaming and shouting all at once, within her brain. And then it was over.

After her brief moment of blindness, she blinked her eyes open to see Tessa smirking at her.

"Am I good in battle now?"

Anna stared at her with shock. This was a new depth to her ability. She guessed she had better stop judging people before she knew the extent of their strength. Like she had with Ruby.

"Yeah, you're good."

Tessa began to hop down the stairs, not at all carefully and Anna watched her go. She would just have to hope this fight didn't start getting violent anytime soon.

And then she joined them too. Walking into the middle of the battle was like switching a movie from mute to full volume. Suddenly, she was a part of everything, every layer of the battle was around her, everything was now in full scale.

She knew she had no convenient abilities for the situation. There were only houseplants in the hallway the one spot the battle was fixed on. Was this really even a battle? The battles she had read about in class, back in high school, before the whole witch thing began, had had tens of thousands of soldiers. She remembered what she could about the Civil war, a battle which involved the entire country, World War one and World War two, as the names suggested, involving the whole world. It was strange thinking about school right now. She had been at the start of her sophomore year when her abilities emerged, little had she known that day as she went home to help her mom soak a turkey with fats and savory sauces, that she wouldn't be returning to that place. Had she still been there, had she not been a witch, she would have been moving on to be a junior once summer vacation was over.

What was she supposed to call this? Definitely not a fight, a war, a battle. More than a boxing match or a school playground fight, but that was still known as a fight. Fewer people than most riots would have. But a riot seemed like the most appropriate title, currently. There was a group of people, young women, fighting for what they believed in, what they were. And there was a group of people, those with the political power, who opposed them. It was as simple as that. She would just have to hope that fewer of them ended up restrained, mortally wounded and locked up in prisons than what she had read about it other riots.

She concentrated. There were two men, approaching Ava, she was already causing her thick and heavy dust to rise from the ground, but it wasn't fast enough, they were aiming their pistol at her. If only he would turn his anger on the other soldier. He dropped his weapon, it clattered to the floor. Then he lunged at his comrade, the two of them wrestling to the floor, punching each others' arms.

Anna stood beside Ruby.

"Nice to see you show up," she growled, not too unkindly, and sent a series of sparks which exploded from her hands and sent one of the female hunters flying backwards into a wall.

"Yeah, well I've been busy." She nodded her head to Abaddon, who was making her own way towards Lilith like the chaos didn't matter to her. She held herself like a Queen, her strides were those of a Queen, even the way she walked.

"Who's that?" Ruby asked and when she got no reply as Anna was busily forcing fury between a group of five hunters, Ruby knocked her, asked again. "Anna, who is that?"

"It's Abaddon. Lilith's sister. I think she goes by Queen."

"You-you brought her back?"

"Yeah, with a little help from my friend Tessa, the _clairvoyant_. Watch out!" Anna stepped in front of the other witch, just managing to fully shield her as a single bullet, glittering as the light reflected off it, burying itself in her thigh, the blood beginning to snake it's way out of the hole made in her skin.

"Oh my God, Anna, you stupid virgin," she heard Ruby say and then, she was already being swiftly dragged away, in the same way she had with her more than twenty four hours ago, when under the same influence of silver.

She weakly raised her head, Abaddon was right next to Lilith, helping as they made the hunters choke on their own spit. And Lilith showed not one sign of shock, no surprise, just looked at Abaddon knowingly, like she had expected the whole way along that this would be what Anna would do. She just had time to watch them embrace each other, their differences, their years apart and distance in age put aside. And then, the clash of armies was behind the door.

Ruby let her go now, her warm breath spreading out across Anna's skin as she held her close, hastening to pull up her trouser leg and look at the wound.

"This may hurt a little."

Anna made something in between a squeak and a scream as something which to her was red hot, bursted out through the tendons of her leg.

"Ruby, this isn't-" she winced as she tried to talk, fighting back tears, then saw that Ruby had made the bullet fly out of her leg and was now twisted it between her thumb and forefinger. "You can't just take me out of the battle. This isn't some game, you can't call time out."

She had taken her to the closet beneath the staircase, Anna could just see in the dark a collection of unused coats, umbrellas, she coughed the out of her lungs. Ruby's outstretched arm was already hovering over the deep wound, it must be deep, it was so painful.

"Hold still will you? No one's going to find us in here."

"But they all saw-" She stopped at Ruby's tiresome teeth gritting against each other.

"No, they didn't see us. We were camouflaged."

"You mean camouflage is one of your powers, too?"

"No, but it's one of yours. Let me explain. It's my final ability. You lot are all going on about that copper skull of yours, but the truth is-" She let out a breath to relieve her of her exasperated sighs. "I can do that. When I'm in contact with other witches, I can harness their powers, use them to my own advantage, and make my own stronger. I never really had the chance to test it out. Back at the facility, there weren't really many witches around and all my time here, I haven't used my gifts. But they know where I am now, so no more harm can be done. Using what you could do, I camouflaged us before any of them saw me leave."

"Wow, that's actually pretty cool. And you didn't mention this before we were about to battle?"

"They're all doing fine out there. I suppose it must be under my amazing lead. You're pretty cool yourself though. Raising Lilith's sister from the dead. That's some complex magic. Anyway, all done."

Anna now carefully reviewed Ruby's work. There was no wound, not even a scratch, only some blood stains from what Ruby hadn't been able to wipe away with her hands, little spatters decorating her skin like stars in the night sky.

"You're a healer?"

"Are you seriously going to keep going on at me about my secret powers. Get over it. I'm not going to tell you my kryptonite, honey. I'm not as dumb as Superman."

"But Lilith said it was the rarest of the powers."

"I think we've already gotten the idea I'm a rare creature. But really, who isn't? Can you stand?"

Anna hauled herself upwards onto her feet. Her leg was numb for just a second and then, all traces of pain were gone. Ruby helped to steady her.

"You ready to go back in there?"

But the world outside was a complete mess compared to what it had been just two minutes earlier. It seemed, Ruby presence had been holding them back in some way, preventing anyone from getting severely hurt. The case was very different now, though. Every bullet fired, every fireball thrown, was with a killing, or harming intent, piercing the air with perfect precision.

This was warfare with no structure, battle with no real aim, no one seemed to know quite who the enemy was. Anna saw a hunter fire at one of his own, the other man crumpling, his body almost folding neatly in two as his chest came into contact with the hard marble floor.

"Ruby?"

Ruby was shaking her head, wringing out her hands. Their numbers were dropping rapidly, the chances of defeat were currently so awfully high, she could already see three witches face down, identifiable by their floaty, black dresses. Whether their brains were still fully functioning was a matter that would be dealt with later but people were stepping over and on them, trampling the casualties like those lost souls didn't even matter anymore.

Abaddon sent a whirling swarm of fire across the room. It seared the wall and took half the hair off one man's head who screamed as the flames started to spread across his temple. She had taken charge of the battle, she stood in front of a group of young witches, Tessa and Kali were visible. But no sign of Meg. Could she be one of the bodies on the floor?

"Shh." She drew a finger up to her lips. "You stay here. I have an idea."

And then, without another word, she dashed away. Anna was stranded. So there was nothing else she could do, she had no choice. She could have no mercy if she didn't want to see her friends die. Beneath this house were the roots of trees, dead trees, rotting trees, flower bulbs, all the material she would need.

She raised both of her arms, cracks showed in the expensive floor as it split, making way for newly formed tree branches, brandishing more sharp thorns, sweeping along the ground. Forget tripwires. This would make plenty more of them fall head over heels.

The hunters were looking around with faces expressing alarm. Maybe they would have expected moving plants outside, but in here, it was unheard of.

Abaddon, along with her help, was making all the difference, dominating, commanding, steering them to safety as she charmed the hunters out of attacking her, as she shot more flames in an arc over their heads. She saw more fall to the ground.

Worn out after some time of forcing the tree's branches to take down as many enemies as it could, she found herself face to face with the blonde haired hunter who she had met before at the party.

He grimaced at the sight of her, like he was truly disgusted by what he saw, and put a hand to his belt. He had no gun, no long pointed spear, no dagger or Medieval sword. There was no hammer, not even a chainsaw. But there was a chain, a long chain that had been carefully coiled up.

"You know what?" he said to her, and just for a moment, her body seemed to stop functioning at the sight of this daunting piece of metal. But she was already back in a fighting stance, one of her glowing orbs ready in her hand. She tossed it at him and it knocked him hard in the face, exploding with a crackling like the sound of fireworks. It was good to know they could be used for more than just lighting.

"I really hate you frickin' witches, spewing your bodily fluids everywhere. Yes, I really hate you." His grin was one of malevolence as he saw the pain in her face which she tried to hide away. Because, he reminded her of the things her family had said. For all these months, she had locked every image of them, every one of their voices, in a box in the back of her head, pretending she didn't care what others thought of her. But here they were now, spilling their contents all through her mind.

He got to his feet, the impact had barely injured him. She was about to send another orb, when he let out the chain with expertise. It uncoiled itself as it swished through the air, he had had practice, that was for sure. And it bound itself around her waist, perfectly. The blue light which had been sparkling in her hand had vanished, she began to kick, tugging at the silver with stinging, bitten down fingernails. And she was not the only one.

Tessa, Kali, Ava, Rowena, the frizzy haired girl, all of them went down as they were bound, their energy taken from them and they began to fall to the floor, unable to make an effort to set themselves free. And the lack of witches meant fewer defences which meant more and more of them were being taken hostage. It was a victory to those with the highest number, to those who fitted the social norm.

Ten of them, that was how many of them were simpering as they began to fall into partial sleeps, while Anna stood, trying to fight the chains off herself. She was the only one who could regain what strength they sucked out of her.

"Yes, I hate all you witches," shouted the blonde man as he circled her, his grip on her restraint the entire time. "I hate you for what you did to my brother, to my family. My dad wasted a lifetime hunting you. I vowed the day he died that I would kill every last one of you bitches! But I don't need to do all the dirty work myself. Word is, you have a priestess among you. I could kill you all now, you're outmatched. So, this priestess has until the count of five to come in here and safe her friends. One...two..."

Anna squeezed her eyes shut as she prayed that Ruby wouldn't come out. If they killed them, she could just bring them all back. But could she resurrect herself?

"Wait."

Oh no, she recognized Ruby's familiar yell, echoing off the walls. She let herself take in light again. The girl took large, quick steps forward, around the edge of the circle.

"I'm here, jackasses. Come and get me."

God, Ruby what was she doing? Had this been her stupid plan, give herself up. Either way, she would die, just a lot more people would be saved if Ruby hadn't come forward. They could use her. She knew that now.

But Ruby was smirking, already sprinting for the stairs. Every single one of the hunters' eyes was on her, some dashing after her, others staying in place to hold their prisoners. But the point was, they were all distracted.

Anna saw what no one else saw, a figure in a black hoodie, face invisible beneath the dark fabric, floating through the air, parallel to the ceiling and floor, gliding over their heads and coming to rest on the ground behind her. Someone who could levitate.

Anna tried to twist her head but it was impossible when she was tied up at this angle. She could vaguely sense their energy, the dreaded metal had taken most of her power away. This energy signature showed someone who was content, happy, strong, ready to do what they had to. ALl of that was clear. And then this person approached her, took her hand, took the hand of Kali who had fallen to the floor beside her. And Anna got some of the idea, she bent over as far as she could, her hand finding that of a fainted witch who was lying limp, her hand warm though and a steady pulse still beating.

She glanced to her side and could just make out the profile of her lovers face. Then who was the imposter, the girl the hunters were all chasing now? Then it hit her. Meg.

Ruby gave her a nod and Anna felt a stream of energy flow through her, like the wires in an electrical circuit, her own powers being absorbed to make the effect of Ruby's even larger. Telekinetically, her chains unwound themselves from her, the hunter who had a hold on her, sensed what was happening and turned around with shock.

Every single witch was freed, one at a time but before the hunters could do anything to stop Ruby's mass of power. Each of them had figured out what was happening, were linking arms, joining the chain of magic possessing young girls. And then the metal chains snapped back into action, flying across the room and binding themselves around each of the hunters. They had done it. They had won.

But now Meg, still in the form of Ruby was looking at the clock, anxiously, her eyes almost popping out of her face as she read and reread the time displayed on the clock. And then, her face began to melt.


	8. Chapter 8

"Meg, oh my gosh, Meg!" Ruby's face which she wore was falling away like wax, Anna could make out the rounded features becoming clear, the two skins melding together as some new hideous creature.

"What's wrong with her?" Anna demanded to no one in particular. But Meg was the one to answer, moaning from her two mouths, smaller lips twitching behind bigger, pinker lips.

"I...I was in Ruby's form for more than-" she struggled to finish her last sentence. Anna could see inside her mouth, two tongues were joined together.

"-An hour," she sighed and let her head fall back. Some clumps of her hair were chestnut, others were a deep brown like Ruby's.

"It was our plan." Ruby was trying hard not to sob. "She was going to distract them, pretending to be me while I harnessed all you guys' powers. I knew it would work because the first time she turned into me, I didn't even become unconscious. But she spent so long practising being me and waiting for the guards to have you all under control. You're all tougher than I thought but I knew they'd want me most of all." Ruby glanced back at the guards who Rowena and Missouri were busy gagging, leaving them no longer any harm to them, on the floor.

"What will happen to her?"

"She's got two bodies, not quite the same size or shape, trying to function merged together. She may not have enough blood to keep both hearts, mine and hers, functioning. The structure of her bones will be strange, it will be hard for her to move. She'll certainly never walk again." She gestured to her leg which around the knee area, seemed to split in half into two new legs.

"No more flirting with anyone for me." Meg let out a semi-painful, semi-humorous chuckle. Her mouth drooped open, her two tongues lolling around in there. This resembled someone who had lost partial control of their vocal side. "I guess now I look like a-a freak on the outside, too."

"Not if I can help it," Ruby said. And then she laid her hands to her cheeks. "Her flesh seemed to correct itself, Ruby's patches of skin which still remained being absorbed by the paler skin beneath, through invisible pockets in her jaw, her hair turning the right color, that horrid second tongue of hers fading.

She gave Anna a smile as she held her hand. "You were getting really worried there for a second. I'm a healer, remember honey? A healer with the best plans in the world, although that was pretty great of you back there."

"I have to go and check on the others," Anna solemny replied, a happy twinge in her heart that Meg was going to be fine. The small crowd of girls watching Ruby's miracle parted as she swept through them.

"Wake up, wake up. Tracy, please wake up," a girl was crying as she patted the cheek of her friend, the girl she had seen with the trip wire earlier, her eyes now closed, with red which had long ago stopped spreading across her shirt. It definitely wasn't ketchup or wine.

"I'm sorry," she said. More than one had died today and she was sorry for every last one of them. But she knew what she had to do to sort this out. "What's your name?"

"Gilda," the girl answered.

"And your friend's called Tracy, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Gilda, I think I can help Tracy." Just as she was reaching out, a shout came from the sitting room. "I'll be right back," she said to Gilda as she rushed away, crashing straight into Tessa.

"Where's Lilith?"

"I don't know. The last time I saw her, she was fighting alongside Abaddon."

She grabbed her friends shoulder as she dashed to the source of the noise. Meg, Kali and Ruby, the original five of them, came dashing after her, to see the worst of sights.

Lilith was standing her back up against the wall, I kind of half-fear on her face, yet she seemed almsot completely relaxed. And a hunter was facing her. A hunter she knew very well. He was tall, very muscular, long brown hair came down to his neck. The hunter whom Lilith had hypnotised to help Anna escape, back at the start of the summer. What had his name been? Sam Winchester, that was it, she remembered even now. And he had a gun which Lilith stared down the barrel of.

Yet he had had plenty of time since Lilith shouted for help, he seemed uncertain about his grip on this killing weapon, their was a type of mixed confusion in his eyes.

Ruby held her hand up and the gun fell flat on the floor. But a new weapon had risen: a silver spear at his feet, edging its way so that it was airborne. And none of the five witches were doing it. That meant that this magic was being used by Sam.

Before they could stop him, the spear had thrown itself forwards, pinning Lilith to the wall through her stomach. It had not been a perfect aim but Anna still couldn't quite shake from her head what had quite happened. She tried to dismiss it, say it was just an illusion, the fact that her guide, her tutor could be mortally wounded. But the spear was still there, it still stuck out at a perfect ninety degree angle.

And then, they were on him, holding him down on the floor before he could do anything else, Ruby chaining him up.

And Anna was pulling the spear away, letting it clatter to marble with a crash, easing Lilith onto the couch, sharing her dead weight with Meg. Her eyes were just slits, like she was struggling to stay awake. Because if she fell asleep this time, she would never wake up again.

"Ruby, you can help her, right? Like you did with me?" It was Meg who queried this, she was struggling to stop the bleeding which refused to clot over. But she had been cut straight through the middle. Surely, one of her internal organs had been hit. It was a wonder she wasn't dead already.

"I-I don't think I can. With you, Meg, it wasn't a mortal wound, there was no certain chance of death instantly. But Lilith's bleeding out, we have a minute at best. Please, Lilith, stay with me."

"Then I'll bring her back," Anna offered. "I did it with Abaddon, I can do it with her, too."

Lilith laughed, her teeth stained red. "I lied to you, Anna."

"What?"

"I lied to you. You can't resurrect people, you never had much of a chance to test it. But you can reanimate, bringing back an imprint of the dead in their temporarily functioning body. But it only lasts an hour. Like with Meg's ability."

"But-but Abaddon," she choked. "I brought her back from the dead. She-" Then she stopped. "Where is Abaddon?"

"Over there," Lilith said. And where she pointed to lay a pile of dusty bones, black clothes surrounding them, already beginning to decay. "We were in here talking. She didn't have much time left and then the spell was broken. She's gone again."

"No, Lilith, there has to be a way. We can-we can cure you. We can get Missouri-"

"Three months ago, you were girls. And now, you're all young women. It has been so wonderful working with you," Lilith croaked. "And seeing you develop and grow. But now, it is the end for me. And Anna, as a dying wish, leave me be. Leave me to be happy with my sister. Ruby, you will make a wonderful coven leader." And then her eyes finally closed, her breathing dimming, no more rise of her bleeding chest. Lilith was gone.

* * *

 

They buried Lilith and Abaddon in the back garden. It seemed appropriate, being out in daylight, them knowing precisely where to find the two siblings and not having to search, like Tessa had in the attic. She said she didn't hear them anymore, either of them. Anna knew she was a clairvoyant now. So all she could hope this meant was that both their spirits had moved on.

Still, she wanted a proper funeral. After they had been put into coffins, Lilith's broken body still fresh and her skin washed out and chalky, already decomposing, whereas all they had left of Abaddon was bones. But they got matching coffins, carefully made by Anna, from what wood she could collect from trees.

She didn't like the idea of marking them with headstones. So it was a tree each, a yew for Lilith and an oak for Abaddon, reaching high up into the late summer sky, the branches brushing the Sun. This was all to do with the theory about the days of the week they were born on. Yew was meant to represent Saturdays and oaks Sundays, one Sunday of which had been the day Abaddon was born.

They were keeping the hunters still, bound, gagged, feeding them thrice daily, like they were pets. But they had to keep them away for now, to stop them spinning their own version of events.

After the funeral, Rowena's students had to leave, back for Wyoming. There had to be witch covens all over the country, so she said, so witches would not have to travel far to find them. And they could be expecting new students soon. That was guaranteed.

Tessa came to find Anna the afternoon after the burial.

"I found out what I could about that guy, Sam Winchester."

"Uh huh," Anna said, tugged out of her daydreams.

"His older brother is the leader of that band of hunters, the blonde one, his name's Dean. Apparently something went really bad when Sam was a kid."

"What?"

"They were some of the first non-witches to know about magic, when people thought they were crazy. When Sam was younger, a witch sneaked into his bedroom and gave him some of their blood, killed his mom when she tried to stop them."

"No wonder Sam had magic in him."

"Yeah, he was a rare male witch. He wasn't actually under hypnosis that day Lilith rescued you, just pretending so he could go and report back to his brother. He was being put under pressure to kill one of his own kind, as well. Do you think we should-"

"No." Anna cut her off. "I know what you're going to say. He killed Lilith and-and we can't let him get away with that. I'm trying to be decent enough, not asking to kill him in return. But I can't bring back those people they killed, that we killed. Gilda's horrified, I told her I oculd help her friend but Tracy's long gone by now. We are not forgiving that man."

* * *

 

"You ready, Ruby?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Alright." The ginger girl wearing a Wonderwoman T-shirt, held a thumbs up as the camera began to record.

"Hey, You're probably wondering today why your various TV shows and news stories are being interrupted for some hot, goth, teenage girl. And I can answer that for you." Ruby spoke confidently into the lense, her actions mimicked on the tiny camera screen.

"Now, my answer for you is that I'm a witch. I come from an academy, a witch coven, in Salem. I know what you've been told about my kind, how we're dangerous, abominations, Satan's children. And that isn't correct. But we're not perfect. And neither are you. I am an extraordinarily powerful witch. From the age of nine, I was locked in a facility. I was abused, beaten by my kidnappers, they experimented on me, five years I was there. Five years as a secret weapon. Until I escaped and came here. I was safe, safe for five whole years. And then, two nights ago, there was a break in."

Anna silently watched her.

"Fifty hunters. They came in, attacked us. And we won. Wehave as many of them as we can, here right now, unharmed, but restrained to stop them hurting us any more. I'm not gonna lie. Lives were lost, regretfully, on both sides. I'm not gonna say these weren't are fault because some of them, we did kill, though we did everything we could to stop them. Four of ours died, five of theirs. Nine lives gone, in this fight of ours. I will now show you some footage from some of these asylums you insist on sending your afflicted daughters to."

Ruby paused here. This scene would be edited later, the images Meg had gotten while posing as a guard in a local asylum carefully sliced in.

"This is not a warning. This is just me revealing the truth. We are a dying race, so few of us are free. I know it will take a while for you to accept us again, but just rethink what you have been told about us. If your child shows magical abilities, do not turn them against you by sending them to a place where they will be tortured. Send them here, to us, where we can help them control their gifts."

The camerawoman pressed the stop button. They had everything they needed. The girl, going by the name of Charlie, had powers that dealt with controlling waves, so their directions of travel could be altered. Fascinated from discovering this at sixteen, she had been training herself in the art of computer hacking for a couple of years. She was the only one of Rowena's to remain behind, to help them. Tomorrow morning, she would be hacking in to televisions all over the world, broadcasting this message everywhere.

Once everything had been cleared away, Anna sat down at the window sill, staring out onto the street. Things were less scary now. Despite the woman who guided them being gone, she knew they could cope under Ruby's lead. Lilith had been right. All five of them had grown so much. Kali had gone from using her control of power to light cigarettes, to tossing fireballs at intruders. Tessa had gone from cheap magic tricks to filling people's minds with terrifying voices. And as for Anna, nine months ago, she raised a turkey from the dead. Two nights ago, she raised a priestess from the dead. They had come so far.

"Something the matter, hippie?"

Ruby was leaning into her, stroking her hair away from her neck and wrapping one arm over her shoulder.

"No. I'm fine. I just really think our plan's going to work. Eventually. Maybe not at once, but people are going to realize what's happening from that footage. There will be protests, maybe the asylums will be shut down. At some point, this nightmares going to be over."

"I love when you talk all realistically like that."

"We're going to have to let the hunters go, aren't we?"

"Well, yeah, at some point." She put her own arm around Ruby's lower back so that they were practically joined at the hip. "They'll be locked away for their crimes to us, they'll get what they deserve."

Ruby took her chin between both hands now.

"Are you using any of that empathy on me to make me fall in love with you?"

"No. Alright, maybe just a little."

Maybe this was the answer Ruby wanted to hear, for she drew in her own lips, letting theirs meet, just for a second before they pulled apart again.

"You know, Ruby, I've been thinking."

"What?"

"We should get a cat."


End file.
